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HIGH TREASON AGAINST 
OUR CONSTITUTION 






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HIGH TREASON AGAINST 
OUR CONSTITUTION 



COMMITTED BY THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND THE 
PROTESTANT CHURCH, A MOST FOUL COMBINA- 
TION TO PLUNDER THE PEOPLE OF THE 
UNITED STATES — A SYSTEMATIZED 
AFFRONT TO THEIR SOVEREIGNTY 



By 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre 



PRICE, $1.00 



DENISON, TEXAS 

AUGUST, 1916 






Copyright reserved 

By w&nsfer 
The White Hou3q. 






PREFACE 

I am a farmer by profession. Coming from Germany, 
I landed at Galveston, Texas, on the 18th of October, 
1898. My family consisted of a wife, four sons and three 
daughters. It increased in the year 1900 to one son more. 
The black land of north Texas had been recommended to 
me as the non plus ultra (the utmost) of fertility of 
soil and surety of crops. I settled down at Southmaid, a 
German settlement, 10 miles west of the city of Sherman, 
Grayson county. 

In the year 1899 I grew my first crop as a farmer in 
the state of Texas. In the first days of August of that 
year, a herd of two hundred and seventy-five head of cat- 
tle broke down before my farm, on the verge of suc- 
cumbing from thirst. For miles around there was no 
water. I had a good tank full of water. From com- 
passion for the mute creatures, I ordered the cowboys 
to drive the herd into my pasture, let them drink to their 
fill, let them rest for awhile and then to go on. They 
did so, and drove the cattle into the pasture. An hour 
later, the owner of the herd appeared and made me the 
proposition, for a small sum of twenty-five dollars, to 
allow him the privilege of having his cattle graze in the 
stubble fields of wheat, and use the straw upon this field 
as fodder for his animals. I agreed, under the condition 
that the cattle be herded carefully day and night so as 
not to eat up my corn and cotton. He consented to it 
willingly. The next night I observed that his cowboys 
laid the wires down that divided the field from the pas- 



PREFACE 

ture wherein the cattle were held over night, and the 
whole herd stampeded into the field. In this stampede 
two wires lying on the ground broke, and the same night 
my best mule got his foot caught in this loose wire, and 
his foot was cut off. For over four weeks the herd re- 
mained on my farm, against all my protestation, destroy- 
ing everything I had raised. I was a so-called green- 
horn. I did not know that the handling of a shotgun 
freely is prima ratio ruris, that is, the first law of the 
land. I brought a damage suit in the amount of eleven 
hundred and fifty dollars. 

In the first trial the jury gave me to-wit : Seven hun- 
dred and fifty dollars damages. The opposing counsel 
was the "Honorable" Hamp P. Abney, lawyer. And 
my opinion is that his scheme was to make as much 
money for himself from the suit as possible, because his 
client was a rich man. The "Honorable" Hamp P. 
Abney, through his technical and unprofessional schemes, 
fixed it so that this case was tried to-wit, eleven times. I 
won every case. In the last judgment the jury gave me 
one hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy-five cents 
damages!!! Hamp P. Abney appealed to the Supreme 
Court and the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in 
my favor, so is justice handled in the state of Texas. The 
collection of this money is still pending in court. 

January, 1903, I rented a small farm five miles south- 
east of Denison, Grayson county. In January, 1904, I 
bought on time the so-called Cutler farm, of 172 acres 
of land, and the Henoch Duncan farm, joining the farm 
that I had rented. On these two possessions I have con- 
tinously lived ever since. 

The first of January, 1906, the Denison Bank and 
Trust Company, of which I had bought the Cutler place, 
induced thereto by the lawyer Hamp P. Abney, after his 



PREFACE 

own statement, at Sherman, wrongfully and illegally to 
gave title of the Cutler place to my oldest son, thereby 
depriving my other seven children of their rights to this 
farm. As soon as I discovered the fraud I foreclosed 
the deed and brought suit for trespass, to try title, forced 
thereto by dictates of duty as justice. The lawyers, 
Hamp P. Abney and Hassel, at Sherman, have made 
every effort to hinder the trial of the case. To get me 
out of their way they had me tried for insanity and sent 
me to the Terrell asylum for the insane, where I have 
been restrained of my liberty fifty months against all 
protestation, reasoning and remonstrance on my part. 
During my illegal imprisonment in the insane asylum 
Hamp P. Abney and Hassel illegally disposed of my 
homestead, the Henoch Duncan farm. To prevent my 
objections, I was put under guardianship of a woman, 
without my knowledge or consent. 

On the 30th of March, 1916, I left the insane asylum 
upon demand of one of my sons. In this situation I have 
decided to write this book. Its contents settle the ques- 
tion as to my sanity, expose the criminals on bench, bar 
and insane asylums connected with the crime imposed 
on me, and deal out justice. 

In the interest of the community I deemed it proper 
to write some items reciprocally related with the subject 
to which my readers should pay their most earnest at- 
tention. 

THE AUTHOR. 



Fellow Citizens : — Man is a curious being. A miracle 
in his entity, he is the product of the highest creative 
power of nature. His foot alone is a marvel of mechan- 
ical construction, an unsolved riddle to the most ingeni- 
ously gifted architect and engineer of our time. In this 
perfect machine nature humorously put two souls fight- 
ing one another constantly. Half, one loves oneself eag- 
erly; half, one hates oneself bitterly. As proof, we see 
that all men in all walks of life seem to have about the 
average human virtues and faults, the cause of sympathy 
or antipathy between them. 

When the young lady who typed this article at my dic- 
tation, looked with her large deer-like eyes into my cold 
ones, with a glance of comprehension, half astonished, 
half frightened at what the next sentence might reveal, 
I had the pleasant sensation of a wholesome warmth that 
crept into my old heart. In her charming, well-devel- 
oped femininity I saw a splendid specimen of the carrier 
of our race, and I loved mankind with indiscrimination. 
She has honestly gained the fruit of her strenuous labor 
as far as money is concerned ; but I feel deeply indebted 
to her, and compelled to avail myself of this opportunity 
publicly to express my grateful acknowledgment for the 
faithfulness of her service to me. Tact, the controlling 
principle of life, forces me not to tell her name, respect- 
ing therein her wish. Girlish modesty is like a violet, a 
hidden whisper of blue under a green leaf, transmitting 
its brilliancy and warmth into spiritual cheer even in 

1 



2 HIGH TREASON 

the heart of a man on the pleasant side of sixty-six years, 
where everything vanishes away, commending kind con- 
sideration and courteous attention. 

In dealing with the lawless elements on bench and bar 
of the Grayson County Court from personal experiences 
with this court, the appearance of my person in the fore- 
ground is inevitable. If experience is the basis of all 
wisdom, my counsel to adjust the deplorable obvious dis- 
honesty prevailing in our court house, is priceless; 
Through exposure of the wrongdoer and wakened con- 
science of the people, who are responsible for the condi- 
tion, coupled with effectiveness that really produces re- 
sults, our courts can be placed on the high moral level 
that they should occupy. What is logical is not impossi- 
ble. For this purpose we Americans should acquire the 
wonderful ability of the Germans for team work, in turn- 
ing every individual's energy to a common end. 

I shall stand forever for civic righteousness and the re- 
duction to the minimum of all forms of vice in the com- 
munity, conscious that life is not enjoyment, but hard 
labor. 

Is there anything worth while in which hard work is 
not the requisite for success? He, who cannot, or will 
not, co-operate in useful activity and in amelioration of 
living conditions in the community to which he has the 
privilege to belong, is ripe for the graveyard as useless. 
The life of the individual citizen is valuable only when it 
is conscientiously and actively employed for the attain- 
ment of the common good. 

If what I shall say is true in substance and in fact the 
people have a right to know it, and if what I shall say is 
not true, the people have a right to call me a professional 
defamer of the character of my fellowmen who socially, 
financially and professionally enjoy an elevated position 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 3 

in the community, and high standing in certain society. 
From my charges against the Protestant church of the 
United States are excluded the German Lutheran confes- 
sions. To wish me more psychology and a better frame 
of mind for this enterprise is gratefully accepted. I 
frankly admit unreservedly the limitations of my work, 
conscious of possibilities beyond my horizon ! 

Truth usually achieves its best work in the limelight 
of unrestricted publicity and not under the mysterious 
fetters of a pretentious officialdom in court house and 
asylum. Men who are entrusted by the people to enforce 
law, are not thereby made chartered individuals to humil- 
iate, degrade, imprison, or cold-bloodedly kill citizens as 
I saw done in the Terrell Asylum, contrary to law. If 
they, do so, they are guilty of misconduct so grossly as to 
necessitate their removal from bench, bar, and insane 
asylum for the honor, peace, prosperity and good govern- 
ment of the community, as not possessing the spirit of 
fair play, that ought to charm and lead the conduct of 
every public man toward the respondent. 

As the " Mountain' ' did not come to "Mohammed" in 
spite of his kindest invitation, ' ' Mohammed ' ' resolved to 
go to the "Mountain," the lawless element of the Gray- 
son County Court, which will not recognize that the court 
house belongs to the people for the purpose of adminis- 
tering justice, but consider it their private domain to 
serve their selfish aims by an unwarranted upholding of 
the usurped power of the courts, I, therefore, have de- 
cided to take the good people of Texas into my confidence, 
outside of the walls of the court house, by writing open 
letters concerning each one of those violators of the law, 
for the purpose to disbar them from practising it. The 
form and expression of each letter is not intended to 
neglect, or willfully disregard the rules of politeness and 



4 HIGH TREASON 

propriety, but is forced upon me by necessity to attain 
the purpose tactfully. Tact defined is a peculiar skill 
and adroitness in doing and saying exactly what is re- 
quired, or suited to the circumstances. Law, right, jus- 
tice and humanity cannot be compromised nor can they 
be violated by telling the truth. Thoroughness and the 
will to get to the bottom of the thing regardless of self- 
interest, is my aim. 

When my style of writing seems to be incoherent and 
rugged at times, not being well versed in handling the 
English language, I must ask the indulgence of the read- 
er, still taking the liberty to recommend him to read my 
articles, word for word, in the way of a connoisseur of 
wine-drinking, who slowly sips the blissful gift of nature 
and God 's noble creature. Each one of my articles will 
have a leading thought, which habit I will follow even in 
the open letters to the persons addressed at the end of 
my articles. Deprived of my property, I am a poor man. 
Legally, I am a pauper in the full meaning of the word, 
even the suit that I wear is a gift of grace of the State 
of Texas, to cover my nakedness when I left the mad- 
house. I have not realized the philosopher's dream, a 
youth of labor with an age of ease. Therefore, I have 
decided to charge the public a moderate fee for a copy 
of my articles to repay the expenses of printing and dis- 
tributing. 

I beg leave to extend my personal good wishes for the 
continued welfare and happiness of my readers. Keenly 
sensible of the cordial feelings between us, I assure them 
of my desire and aim to reciprocate and foster that feel- 
ing. 

I remain, with the sincerest respect and regard, 
Your obedient and humble servant, 

Karl Dignowity Zur "Wehre. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 



II. 

Not enjoyment and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end and way; 
But to act that each tomorrow, 

Find us farther than today. 
Let us then be up and doing, 

With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor and to wajit. 

— Longfellow. 

What we need is an improvement in the moral standard 
of the men who compose the bar, to raise its standard. 
Saloons are regulated by law, but lawyers are also li- 
censed and there are more laws in our statutes relating 
to attorneys than to saloons. If I did not believe in the 
moral adjustment of the minds of honest men, I should 
not believe in popular government, which I, to the best of 
my ability, shall support. I, therefore, regard it as patri- 
otic to respect and promote the honor of the country by 
not allowing such misdemeanor of our servants in office, 
and by exposing their misconduct and bringing them to 
justice. Indifference to duty involves immorality and 
crime. In questions of right and wrong to be neutral is 
vicious. Duty is a word that is all-inclusive so far as 
principle and integrity are concerned. The German, Im- 
manuel Kant, the founder of Critical Philosophy, taught 
the gospel of moral duty as a categorical imperative. He 
who does not feel constrained to bend every effort to the 



6 HIGH TREASON 

fulfillment of his duties and obligations, especially as a 
public servant, who solemnly has sworn to do so, evi- 
dently has a conscience more or less moribund leading to 
anarchy, outrage and crime! I go so far as to profess 
that a public officer who only does his duty, does not do 
all his duty. 

The performance of what I consider my duty in writ- 
ing a series of articles to the public, is simply a fulfill- 
ment of principle, a demand made necessary by human 
needs in our community, which every thoughtful person 
should recognize as such, as an approving conscience dic- 
tates. Some will say I would far better have waited with 
my accusations and charges against the lawless element 
on bench and bar and insane asylum, till my trials came 
up. This habit of going to the people first and taking evi- 
dence afterwards, is denounced by the legal lights as 
against all rules of pleading a case, being the habit of 
a demagogue. They forget that they are our hired serv- 
ants and we their sovereigns. I am part of the people, 
and as our lawkeepers, collectively speaking, do not do 
their duty in removing from bench and bar those crim- 
inals that besiege it, I take the liberty to perform their 
job, appearing as prosecuting attorney, who tries his 
case with printers' ink in the open, outside the walls of 
the court house, because the men inside are involved in 
the crime and constitutionally are not compelled to act 
against themselves. For home consumption, they will 
preach that it is not fitting to talk about my past, and 
that silence about all things connected therewith is more 
significant and sublime, indicating not only a great mind, 
but also a decent propriety and discretion, than the 
most noble and expressive eloquence. 

There was a certain temperament given to me in my 
cradle and I am resolved to live out that temperament 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 7 

to the full, till I reach the end of my life. I therefore 
beg permission of those lawless elements to solve the mys- 
tery of their lives by ' ' indiscretion. ' ' Prudery was not 
among the gifts that were laid in my cradle. The mem- 
bers of the rotten system of the judiciary in the Grayson 
county court, imagine they own the heaven of intelli- 
gence. I claim to have leased these premises and to be in 
lawful possession of them. There will not be any con- 
troversy from their side on the issue involved, because 
the issue is dead at the moment when the printers' ink 
has dried on my articles. To say, that I intend to preju- 
dice the minds of the readers of my articles on the sub- 
ject is sheer nonsense, because there is no demand for 
their judgment. I need no support from anyone. I am 
strongest alone, a little force will break that which was 
wrecked before. I pursue my aim with steadfastness of 
purpose and the unfaltering faith in its ultimate achieve- 
ment — those criminals must leave the bar. 

I am not a man who sails in a ship that carries a false 
flag. I therefore inform the public of what may not gen- 
erally be known, that on the nineteenth of March, 1916, 
the highest authority on mental disorder in the state of 
Texas, "His Magnificence," Dr. George F. Powell, 
Superintendent of the largest eleemosynary institution 
in Texas, at Terrell, reputed to be of the clearest water 
as a psychiater, has officially rendered a judgment as to 
my mental condition. On that date, Dr. George F. 
Powell, after a search so painful and so long for him, 
lasting fifty months, finally discovered the undeniable 
phenomena upon which the symptoms of my insanity 
rest, more mercifully expressed — my psychic wound. His 
judgment reads, "I cannot take any responsibility for 
my patient, Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre, in leaving this 
madhouse. He is insane, a dangerous man, not safe at 



8 HIGH TREASON 

large ! " I suppose Dr. George F. Powell intended with 
his "official judgment' ' about my mental condition effec- 
tually to cloak his own rascality, and the rascalities of the 
lawyers, Hamp P. Abney, Hassel and accessories sub 
crimine against the eventuality that I should prosecute 
them for the crime committed on me. Verbally, he 
explained to me that he had come to "this opinion" by 
his ' ' ignorance ! " a self conviction which I was too polite 
to contradict. I courteously asked him if he permitted 
me, too, to have an "opinion." Dr. George F. Powell 
eagerly consented to that, unconscious that he thereby 
contradicted his "official opinion" as to my sanity, giv- 
ing prima facie proof of his ignorance whose cause is not 
only ill will, with the least particle of human sentiment, 
but also an erroneous belief from lack of solid profes- 
sional learning. The acknowledgment of ignorance is a 
virtue, the intuitive feeling of the want of reason that 
demands improvement. Ignorance is not hopeless as 
long as it is soft — but nothing can be done with it after 
it sets and hardens. It therefore had cost me about a hun- 
dred official dispatches to persuade ' ' His Magnificence ' ' 
to come to the perception of his uselessness as a physi- 
cian. As my arguments were convincing, I succeeded! 
I was the only patient Dr. Powell has ever had with 
whom he was afraid to contend. A useless physician in 
an insane asylum is the most pitiable and abject thing 
on God's beautiful earth! unfit even to herd the good, 
the pious, the hearty and the trembling ! ! 

I make no comment on my assumed insanity by a sin- 
ister liar, but to brand me as a dangerous man, not safe 
at large, intellectually, is too much honor. There was 
some uneasiness in the camp of the lawless element on 
bench and bar of the Grayson County Court at the 
thought that I should become a free man again, and the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 9 

important discovery of Dr. Powell as to my mental con- 
dition therefore, I presume, brought a great relief of 
the painful tension of their brains, and totally pacified 
the minds of the * c Honorable ' ' lawyers, Hamp P. Abney, 
Hassel, and all accessories sub crimine. I was now abso- 
lutely harmless, and the truth was muzzled nicely and 
ingeniously. Among all sufferers from disease, the 
insane deserve the greatest sympathy from their fellow 
men. "Well knowing the warm heart, the open hand, 
and some faults of the good people of Texas, I feel 
sure to enjoy their sympathy with the deplorable con- 
dition of my mind, as officially stated by Dr. Geo. F. 
Powell. 

"Sanity is not a certainty, but a balance. Man is 
neither a brute nor is he a spirit ; man is both. He who 
wholly alludes to one form or the other is crazy. ' ' This 
fine definition on the subject of sanity is from Dr. Frank 
Crane, New York, whose useful occupation is to teach the 
people how to practice philosophy. Splendid in its sim- 
plicity and pointedness, his definition is understood by 
every man with common sense, even should it not be 
much. According to this definition, sanity is not a cer- 
tainty but a balance, craziness, an unbalance to the 
extreme of either side of human nature, the brutal or 
the spiritual side ; insanity is a declination more or less 
serious from that unknown demarkation line. The forms 
of insanity are changeable in their manifestations and 
infinite in their varieties. The essential constitution and 
the mind of an individual are born, not made. We do 
not inherit our traits exclusively from our parents; we 
inherit them from our grandparents and our great- 
grandparents as well. We are nothing but a blend of 
traits, mixtum compositum non singulum sumus! Each 
individual consequently carries within his system a mul- 



10 HIGH TREASON 

titude of characteristics that he gives no evidence of 
having and of which he is quite unconscious. As I was 
positively conscious of not being insane, my long incar- 
ceration in a madhouse failed in its purpose to cause a 
psychic knockout that leaves one speechless and in a 
stupor. The perspicacity, the shrewdness, the firmness, 
the readiness and the facility of my expressions in these 
communications, supported by good nature and good 
will to mankind, give ample proof of my sanity beyond 
the peradventure of a doubt. 

To be sure, there is a strain of insanity in every human 
being. It is there latent in him today, but no man is 
absolutely certain that this strain of insanity may not 
become patent in him tomorrow — and so is ingenuity! 
The correct definition of the word insane is ill. That ill 
persons, because they are ill, should lose their rights as 
citizens and electors, as the lawless element on the Gray- 
son county bench and bar, for selfish aims, is so eager to 
preach to the people, is the greatest fraud ever perpe- 
trated on the public, and on those unfortunate persons 
that suffer from mental disorder. 

It is therefore the inalienable right of an American 
citizen, even if he is ill, to criticize a public officer, or any 
other mere public servant, supposing the criticism is fair 
by being true. As for myself, I solemnly repudiate the 
maxim held up by our imposters in public service, con- 
scious or unconscious of their identity, that a criticism 
must be tolerant in expression and not violent in word. 
I am not quite conversant with the English language, but 
am eager to acquire its graces of style. I therefore shall 
make it my duty to compensate my lack of eloquence by 
the sincerity of the expression. I shall call a scoundrel a 
scoundrel with scientific accuracy of the meaning of the 
word, no matter whom it concerns, therein claiming the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 11 

inalienable right of humankind to be brutally frank, a 
right recognized by the entire world. 

I am for the greatest individual freedom consistent 
with human rights, in obedience to the constitution of the 
country and ever ready to do honor to a servant of the 
people, who indeed faithfully performs his duty and 
willingly carries out his solemn promise to obey their 
will, not to boss them. This politeness towards public 
servants is but right feeling controlled by common sense. 
As it is a part of wisdom and safety for me to rely upon 
reason and appeal as a man who was fifty months con- 
fined in a madhouse, the greater part of this time occu- 
pying a punishing ward where misery rules, I am glad 
that finally the time has come to enjoy the special privi- 
lege again to be engaged in open discussion coram pub- 
lico with the lawless element — faithfully expressed, I 
should say consummate scoundrels — on bench and bar of 
the Grayson County Court, and in the administration and 
management of the Insane Asylum at Terrell, the so- 
called ' ' Old Reliable Bughouse, ' ' as some members of the 
legal talent significantly call this institution of charity. 
Sometimes there is a queer way of upsetting theory and 
prognostication against all pronunciamentos ! My case 
is only a solitary instance of the maladministration of 
Charity and Justice in Texas. The result is certain to 
be most interesting. 



12 HIGH TREASON 



III. 



Let us have faith that right makes might! 
In that faith let us dare to do our duty, as we under- 
stand it. 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Dear Reader ! "He, who does what circumstances 
allow him, does well and acts nobly; angels could do no 
more.' ' Please see in me a plaintiff sitting on the witness 
chair, representing Americanism, that means equal jus- 
tice to all. I am conscious of the meaning of my oath to 
tell the truth. I have brought suit against national van- 
ity, fatuous boastfulness, greed, inhumanity, unfairness 
and injustice. 

The Supreme Court of the State of Texas has rendered 
the following decision: "It is the inalienable right of 
the plaintiff to give testimony and argument on the wit- 
ness chair, as exhaustive as he may see fit, that the Court 
and the jury can well understand his cause. No trial 
judge shall hinder him in the execution of this, his con- 
stitutional right. ' ' I shall make use of my right ! 

At the beginning the Lord created Heaven and earth 
and spoke, as Genesis reports. After this report at the 
beginning, therefore, was the word. At the beginning of 
the United States was the deed, the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Ringing of the Liberty Bell on the 4th 
of July, 1776. 

The expression, the Declaration of Independence, is an 
unhappy one, in the mind of unripe men, arousing the 
conception that we are as free by this document as the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 13 

bird upon the twig to do just what we please. We are 
not free. Liberty is a relative term. If being free does 
mean free-being to desire, the hog indeed is free that 
rolls into the mire. The sentence ought to read: The 
Declaration of Independence of the English Rule, or the 
Declaration of Equality of Man. That this great docu- 
ment only stands for the latter meaning shows its solemn 
character. 

It is self evident, that good language shall express 
itself in terms that are pointedly relative in intensity to 
their intended meaning. The only exception to this rule 
is the demand of human society that the more disagree- 
able an idea is, from the moral and social point of view, 
the more far-fetched and concealed shall be the linguistic 
symbol we employ to designate the thing in question. 

There is no such a word in the Code of civilization as 
"Independence." The Declaration of Independence 
strictly states that all men are created equal, proclaiming 
the equality of men. That means, all men are alike born 
naked and miserable. The first cry of the baby is the 
cry of pain caused by the expansion of the lung cells that 
are filled with air by the process of breathing, and all 
misery that the mother suffers in giving birth to the child 
is forgotten by her when this cry indicates the birth of 
a perfect child, whose value is difficult to exaggerate. 
Its little soul is a part of the soul of the universe, its little 
body represents the idea of the immortality of the human 
race and that whole little personality, in its staggering 
helplessness, is the light that enlightens and warms the 
world. By nature, as shown, men are essentially equal 
and have substantially equal claims upon one another. 
It is virtue alone that makes the difference — of course 
those who have no sight have not been given a square 
deal ! ! 



14 HIGH TREASON 

The declaration of the equality of man further states, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights ; among those are life, liberty and hap- 
piness. Effectively to secure those rights, government is 
instituted. Without this government, the strong would 
deny the weak, the rascal deny the honest man, these 
rights, hindering them fraudulently and viciously of their 
undisturbed enjoyment. — So the declaration of the equal- 
ity of man states ; adding that if the government does not 
perform its functions properly, the people shall have the 
right to alter it by removing the wrong and holding up 
the right. 

As we find authority in that immortal document to 
protect the citizen whenever the purpose for which gov- 
ernment was organized fails, so it is the right and the 
duty of every citizen to see to it that the government 
should be administered in such a way as to insure every 
individual the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. Happiness means a state of well 
being in continuance; a state of moral, mental, and 
physical health, free from irksome cares ; and enjoyment 
of pleasures after hard work, attendant upon well being 
in human nature — panis et circenses, i. e., bread and 
enjoyments. 

Trusting this renowned document of the declaration of 
equality of man, I voluntarily gave up the effective pro- 
tection of the German empire and became a citizen of a 
Republic called the United States of America, whose 
constitution claims to protect, to secure, to grant, the 
sanest, most just, the most humane, and the most demo- 
cratic government in existence on the globe. To this 
purpose I made a contract in writing with the State of 
Texas, acting as agent of the United States, wherein the 
United States solemnly promised faithfully to protect my 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 15 

life, my property, my personal liberty and not to hinder 
the pursuit of my happiness, provided I do not therein 
unlawfully interfere with the rights of others, and pro- 
vided I am faithful to the duty of citizenship — Facts are 
stubborn things and truth is valuable in the attainment 
of the object sought ! 

A government must have organs, it cannot act inor- 
ganically by masses. Those organs shall not only estab- 
lish justice and insure domestic tranquillity, but also the 
blessings of personal liberty regulated by law ; willing to 
assume every responsibility imposed on them by the con- 
stitution and the declaration of equality of man they shall 
act wisely and progressively in the performance of their 
duty. 

The public spirited and energetic man, generally seek- 
ing legislative service, becomes a sensitive and effective 
instrument for the creation and realization of public 
opinion, the keystone and the real purpose of constitu- 
tional government — that means: law and order. 

For our lawlessness and our disorder in every State of 
the United States the legal profession on bench, bar and 
legislatures is alone and solely responsible. The rotten 
condition of our judiciary is indescribable and unbeliev- 
able. The legal professio-n, hand in hand with the 
Church, governs the land by the crime of high treason 
against our constitution. The strong denies the weak, 
the rascal the honest men, their inalienable rights in 
fraudulently and viciously hindering them to enjoy those 
rights undisturbed — a most foul combination successfully 
to plunder the people and directly to affect their 
sovereignty. 

I object, and I challenge all criminals on bench and 
bar of the Grayson County Court to cite me an instance 
where I have not done so all the time. Since I am a 



16 HIGH TREASON 

citizen of this State and of the United States, I have 
done so persistently all the time of their oppression, their 
denial of justice by delaying justice, their promoting of 
injustice, and I do hold the sentiment that their enor- 
mous confidence in the power that they have by their 
connection with the church, — a most foul combination of 
systematized lawlessness, — is as wickedly false as it is 
palpably absurd. This time they have sent the wrong 
man to the insane asylum, their stronghold, noiselessly 
to let disappear an able opponent whose sound radicalism 
appeared dangerous to their over-foul system to rule the 
people, faithfully held there in their interest fifty 
months by that foul-minded physician, Dr. George F. 
Powell, acting as their abettor and their servitor. If the 
constitution of the United States is not a farce, they will 
have time and leisure in the penitentiary at Leavenworth 
to reform and to learn that if their brains could not 
control the situation forever, they had no right to con- 
trol it. 

Job's troubles as referred to in the Old Book, are said 
to be unparalleled, and yet he was grateful. Property 
gone, children gone, health gone, and yet he recounts 
God's golden blessings to him. 

If that good old man still lived, I should go to him and 
say : ' ' How are you, Job ? I come to console you in your 
misery. You have all reasons to recount God's golden 
blessings, because you enjoy your personal liberty and 
you are not divorced from your wife. Look at me, my 
misery is deeper than yours ; my health is gone, my wife 
is gone, my children are gone, my property is gone, all in 
the blessed name of the State of Texas. I was held fifty 
months in the closest confinement in a punishing ward 
where misery prevails, as a State prisoner in the so-called 
Old Reliable Bughouse at Terrell, and my experience is 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 17 

that it it is a living death, a morass of crime, a morass 
of misery, a place of concealment of sane men in the 
interest of others, under the false pretense to be of un- 
sound mind ; a murder factory, precisely a human sham- 
bles, a banishment with imprisonment for punishment ; a 
pitiful travesty of what the word charity stands for, 
a libel on law, a sickening horror and an eyeless shame. 
The whole truth will never be known unless the dead 
could speak — the dead — when they are too naked to be 
ashamed. The hellish inner workings of this institution 
of charity, horrible and damnable as they are, they 
are cold-blooded murder, most foul, strange and unnat- 
ural. Murder or the procuring of murder is no dan- 
gerous occupation at the insane asylum at Terrell. The 
whole management is wrong from the bottom up, an 
organized injustice. 

''Job ! I regret that I cannot agree with you upon your 
blissful conception of the idea 'God.' I considerately 
esteem your conviction and do not disturb your prayer. 
You are an old man, the hand of your life 's clock is rap- 
idly approaching midnight. The veil will be rent in 
twain soon, whereupon your tired, worn-out body will 
be laid to everlasting rest under the earth. Grass heals 
over the scar which men's descent into the bosom of the 
earth has made in digging your grave, and the carpet of 
the Infant becomes the blanket of the Dead. Grass is 
the forgiveness of Nature, her eternal benediction that 
softens the rude outline of the world by its homely hue. 
Your disembodied spirit is gathered to that of your 
fathers. Faith and hope teach you to believe that with 
your death the imperfection of your life will be ad- 
justed by divine wisdom and your immortal soul, freed 
from its earthly tenement, will be ushered into another 
world, destined there to develop and acquire capabilities 



18 HIGH TREASON 

for culture, refinement and endowment as boundless as 
they are in duration eternal. Stick to that belief, Job, if 
it makes you happy. I soberly remain upon earth. Rea- 
son teaches me that there is no world hereafter. With 
death we refund to the household of nature what nature 
loaned us during our life. With death follows the disso- 
lution of the body, and the preservation of the soul, as 
an immortality, consists in the survival of the ideas and 
aspirations which are the quintessence of our very soul. 
Call it mankind's ideas, or soul of the universe, it is just 
the same. The center of the universe lies in our mind. 
To learn its intricacies is our endeavor — that is the only 
true immortality and not merely a fiction. Virtually we 
survive in our children. Our immortality rests upon 
them after Nature's law of the survival of the fittest. 
Every soul proceeds directly from, and is in union with, 
the Universal Mind, and the human parents, as physical 
forms, are simply the media through which the Universal 
Spirit comes forth to concrete manifestation. 

"All doctrines of immortality taught in allegory or 
symbol are makeshifts to express for the common people 
this grandest of all religious truths. It is undeniably 
sound, untrained and undisciplined in philosophical 
thought. The contrast of good and evil are realities of 
our life, and therefore the idea of God and Satan stands 
for actual facts. But — Satan has no horns and hoofs, 
he is a real presence in the life of man which has to be 
reckoned with during that life — not thereafter. What- 
ever that shameless impostor and harlequin of the pulpit, 
Billy Sunday, says that a hell exists hereafter, do not 
believe him, Job, it is a stinking lie — Gehennah or Hell is 
here ! After the reprehensible and contemptible painting 
of the place of sorrow that Billy Sunday gives in his 
sermons he seems to me to be his Satanic Majesty himself 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 19 

who well knows the miserable condition of his house. His 
whole scheme, with the tacit consent of the church col- 
lectively spoken, is an enormous fraud invented with 
perfidious intent to abuse the credulity of the people to 
get their money by this legal thievery. 

All religious doctrines are to the effect that eternal 
life would come after death. These theories ignore the 
meaning of eternity at the same time that they teach it. 
A postponed eternity is no eternity at all. The only 
thing which ever begins is not creation, but a human 
being's conception of it. Life is a basic principle of 
being which can humanly be improved by eliminating its 
destructive diseases. — There is but one temple in the uni- 
verse, that is the human body of man, whose mind is the 
image of God, as partaker of the infinite and eternal 
energy from which all things proceed. No amount of 
false conception can blot out this identity ! There is no 
national or individual favoritism ; it is there in the poor, 
the repulsive, and the depraved, no matter what mere 
outward appearances may seem to indicate to the con- 
trary; these are but manifestations of human imperfec- 
tion due to ignorance and lack of spiritual attainment. 

"I have a deep reverence for the manifestation of 
Nature in created things that makes me indescribably 
happy. The chief effort of mankind must be to purify 
our idea of God, that means the good principle in the 
world, that it may be greater, sublimer and more awe 
inspiring to future generations — the wisdom of life based 
on experiences, experiments and observations. You see, 
Job, I reckon in my misery upon the high ideals of man- 
kind — and the people of Denison and Sherman are good 
to me, after my release from the madhouse ; they always 
sympathize with "a harmless half-wit" — But, Job, where 
there is no justice, there is no freedom ; justice and free- 



20 HIGH TREASON 

dom are synonyms. In a country where there is no jus- 
tice there is no peace, no happiness, no prosperity and no 
patriotism. Lacking the very foundation for a healthy 
development, each one of them is inconsistent with the 
loss of self-respect and the abandonment of principles. ' ' 

Laws are transmitted, as one sees, 

Just like inherited disease ; 

Still handed down from race to race, 

They noiseless glide from place to place. 

And reason is turned to nonsense ; worse — 

They make beneficence a curse ! 

Ah, me, that I'm a grandson, I, 

As long as I 'm alive, shall cry — 

but of the right that has been bom with us, of that, alas, 
has never been the question! 

Goethe's Faust. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 21 



IV. 

Keep on with your weary battle 

Against triumphant might. 
No question has ever been settled 

That has not been settled right. 

I place before the public in writing the realities of the 
conditions in our courthouse as they actually are, which 
enable me to tell the story truthfully. The element of 
rottenness in our judiciary and legislatures that has been 
present in the United States from its start, a subject with 
which I shall deal in another article, is so serious that by 
that past alone the community should be shocked with 
indignation in a degree seldom witnessed. 

This is a personal note, but the misadministration of 
justice in the United States in general, and in the Gray- 
son County Court in particular, is a well known fact — 
the abuses, the degeneracy, the paralysis, and the petri- 
faction of a system of administering the law of the coun- 
try that is morally wrong and criminal in its fruit, repre- 
senting the crime of high treason against our constitution. 

The responsibility for these deplorable conditions rests 
wholly where the power is reposed, that is, on the people. 
The public mind should recognize that in the free expres- 
sion of public opinion, the people exercise their right and 
execute a might of the utmost importance to protect their 
rights; in publicly declaring the willful actions of the 
lawless elements on bench and bar criminal and offensive, 
and bringing the offenders to justice. 

A man 's reputation is what people believe him to be ; 



22 HIGH TREASON 

but his character is what he really is. Character endures 
to eternity, but reputation may pass away in one hour, 
for sooner or later the public discovers the true character 
of the man. 

As a cure for crimes the rope and the electric chair 
have their unpleasant features, but there is an advantage 
in the fact that they really do cure. The mentioned 
method of punishing those who willfully and persistently 
disregard their oath of office and permit their personal 
feelings, or other selfish considerations, to intervene be- 
tween the breaking of the law and the punishment of the 
law breaker, should be an ever ready remedy, instead 
of the preference to adopt an illegal punishment of the 
culprit before the tribunal of an infuriated populace, 
that undoubtedly acts wrongfully. This fact cannot be 
denied by any person desirous to maintain the character 
for sanity, so fully has the fact been established. The 
civic disease of maladministration of the law cannot be 
cured by hiding it — there is no secret remedy ! Light is 
the most skillful doctor, publicity is the best policeman. 
Show the facts, produce the proofs, be plain and leave the 
rest to others. The problem of a betterment of the scan- 
dalous conditions on bench and bar is obvious and serious, 
the solution urgent and necessary ! 

We Americans lack broad, tolerant, humanitarian 
views. No person is permitted to violate justice from 
any point of view, because right must prevail infallibly. 
We must dissociate from all other considerations, and 
decide it as a personal duty, under no circumstances fur- 
ther to allow those criminals who willfully bend the right 
to remain on bench and bar. We must express our will 
so plainly, in a way so positive, that will make the repeti- 
tion of such lawless acts of the legal profession, if not 
impossible, at least a dangerous thing to him who has the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 23 

impudence to try it. No justice with mercy to a faith- 
less lawyer, never! He has no right to ask for it, for he 
must know that its abstract meaning is in contradiction 
with the strict construction of the law, giving its applica- 
tion from reason to nature liberally construed. Their 
rascality must be fought with tooth and nail, radically 
to die out by a more mature fear of the law on their part. 
We must not stifle our conscience by indulgence. On the 
contrary, as they are intelligent men, know the law, swear 
to represent the law faithfully and then willfully and 
criminally violate it brazenly, such consummate scoun- 
drels should be hung when the law has a sufficient follow- 
ing to give it an air of respectability. 

It is my conviction that a man with criminal instincts 
only needs to turn lawyer in the United States to make 
an " honest' ' living. In this occupation he can indulge 
his perversity to the extent of any crime on our statute 
book without fear of prosecution. The ' ' inner ethics ' ' of 
the foul combination of church and legal profession will 
secure his immunity. Some drastic examples are those 
notorious fix-it-specialists, "the biggest and smartest 
lawyers of North Texas," Hamp P. Abney and Hassel, 
of Sherman ; the type of legal talent that I believe Burns 
had in mind and so significantly expressed in the sen- 
tence, "Hellhounds of lawyers that prowl around the 
kennels of justice." 

Disbarment from holding legal office is the only rem- 
edy, in subtle tribute to our constitution. The lack of 
morality on bench and bar compiled in my articles is a 
glaring instance of the maladministration of justice in 
our Courts. There are moral as well as physical assas- 
sinations; a man responsible for a moral assassination is 
just as guilty as a man that is responsible for a physical 
assassination. I charge the lawless element on bench, bar 



24 HIGH TREASON 

and legislature to be professional assassins of public 
morals. The very essence of their discontent with my 
conviction is an admirable catholicity of spirit on their 
part, but a lack of honor, i.e., the intent to disclaim each 
lurking frailty and guard the way of life from all offenses 
suffered or done. 

I have aroused the antagonism of the lawless element 
of Grayson County by insisting on the enforcement of 
law and have not gotten discouraged because they 
laughed at me, ridiculed me, and overpowered me when 
I was trying to do right. My life conviction is that the 
greatest liberty is justice, that divine necessity inherent 
in the quality of a pure soul, that forbids it to go wrong. 
Our judicial power is created to suppress and remove 
present evils, whereby we are preserved from injuries in 
our personal estates. From this state of affairs alone 
the commonwealth derives peace, order and safety and 
where this state of civilization is willfully and criminally 
interrupted by lawless men on bench and bar, confusion 
amd grave danger are ever ready to overwhelm all. 

When I undertake to render an important service to 
the public in my eandeavor to preserve the people's insti- 
tutions from whimsical and perverse disturbance, the 
community cannot escape the responsibility of being alert 
and dutiful as the creating, directing and executing 
sovereign. 

In disbarring these professional law breakers I submit 
that the facts stated are sufficiently serious in character 
and are so violative of the law of the State and the rules 
of fitness for, and conduct in, legal office that the public 
interest demands their removal from bench and bar 
forever in the United States, for systematized, willful, 
and corrupt conduct in office, high crimes and misde- 
meanor ; honor is a thing that is only in their treasure of 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 25 

language, but does not exist as conceptioniin their brains. 
As corrupt practices of lawyers are made punishable 
under the law as a felony, such practices forbid them 
retaining office. 



26 HIGH TREASON 



V. 



That which you did inherit from your sires, 
In order to possess it, must be won. 

Goethe. 

Qualification serves the purpose of utility; accom- 
plishment serves to adorn; by the first we are made 
useful, by the latter agreeable. 

I consider it my privilege to be permitted to lay before 
my fellow citizens their cause and my own and several 
things to which the inhabitants of the country should 
give their most careful and deliberate consideration. The 
creation of the United States in State form was a social 
event of the first rank, i.e., the declaration of the inde- 
pendence from English rule and the ringing of the Lib- 
erty Bell at Philadelphia, the fourth of July, 1776, pro- 
claiming liberty throughout all the land, upon all the 
inhabitants thereof. When the news of that deed reached 
the Old World, the English crown was disappointed, but 
the other countries in due cognizance of its importance, 
applauded the deed warmly. They were surprised that 
the new revelation to mankind, the brilliant star of jus- 
tice, i.e., liberty, did rise in the West, in contradiction to 
the old notion that made stars of revelation rise in the 
East. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, the Philoso- 
pher upon a throne, sent George Washington, the first 
President of the new State, a precious sword, as the visi- 
ble sign of his personal admiration for George Wash- 
ington and his very great respect for the deed itself. 
This sword indicates that 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 27 

Against oppression, chain and cord 
Thy people stand a living wall. 
Now fight for peace 's sake with thy sword, 
For if thou fail, a world shall fall. 

In the enthusiasm of their achievement, the people of 
the United States established the Statue of Liberty in 
the Bay of New York, for the purpose to greet from afar 
with heartfelt sincerity the voyagers coming to their 
shore from the three corners of the globe on the back of 
Father Ocean. This statue was built of granite to make 
it more endurable than bronze. On top of this monument 
is placed a womanly figure, representing the Goddess of 
Liberty, who balances on the hand of her outstretched 
right arm a plate, from whose surface rises tongues of 
flame, indicating to heaven the purity, the honor, the 
dignity, the strength, and the will of the nation, faith- 
fully to carry out its promise to be the light that leads 
the world in doing justice to every individual that comes 
as guest to its hospitable shores. 

On this fourth of July, 1776, at Philadelphia, while 
the liberty bell proclaimed justice throughout all the land, 
upon all the inhabitants thereof, there met accidentally 
two men. Standing under the shade of a large oak tree, 
they looked with disappointment upon the jubilant crowd, 
drunken with enthusiasm at its accomplishment. The one 
was a tall man, well fed, with sharp cut mouth, pale 
faced and short cut hair. He was a preacher by profes- 
sion. The other was a little man with cunning eyes, set 
a little too narrow in his face, making his glances sharp, 
giving a certain warning to him who looked into them. 
He was poorly clad and poorly fed, a so-called one-horse 
lawyer. They paid no attention to one another. The 
preacher with an ironical, bitter smile upon his thin lips, 



28 HIGH TREASON 

murmured in Latin, "Populus vult decipi" (the people 
will be deecived). Whereupon the little man, sharply 
turning around to the preacher, said, "Ergo decipiatur" 
(therefore it is deceived), "I can fix it that it is a suc- 
cess ! ' ' The tall man without any motion closed his right 
eye and with his left eye looking over the bridge of his 
nose down to the little one, replied, questioningly, "In 
puncto principii do ut des?" (after the principle, "you 
help me and I'll help you.") Thereupon the little man 
eagerly answered, "Certe, posito, manus manum lavat" 
(correctly supposed, — "one hand washes the other"). 
After this they shook hands with one another, thus sign- 
ing the contract. This story, of course, is a fiction. I 
am its author. 

On the 29th of January, 1911, in the Philadelphia Hall 
at Washington were assembled about two thousand men, 
listening to a preacher, who worldly said, "The church 
does not recognize and never has recognized the govern- 
ment of the United States, pretending it cannot perform 
the proper function of a government. The church there- 
fore advocates, and will substitute, the government of 
the church for the government of the people. You are 
cowards and ingrates to your forefathers not to curb the 
ambition of the church, but to allow that from selfish 
aims, for greed and power, she interferes with your con- 
stitution, retaining from you the blessings that rightly 
you should enjoy, according to this sacred document." 
The name of this preacher was Cowley, He was an apos- 
tate from the church, that is, a man who has forsaken the 
faith and the principle of a party to which he before 
adhered — and therefore he spoke the truth! 

On the 29th of January, 1912, at eleven-thirty a. m., 
I passed the Main Street of Denison. In passing the 
front of the house where the lawyer, N. H. L, Decker, has 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 29 

his office for over thirty years, Decker, a tolerably hon- 
est lawyer, called on me. He said, "Dignowity, I nmst 
see you. ' ' I stopped and replied questioningly, ' ' At what 
time?" He answered, "You come at twelve o'clock to 
the Courtroom of the Justice of the Peace, Geo. French." 
Punctually at twelve o'clock I was there, and found the 
building empty of a living soul. Decker came. We had 
the following conversation. Rubbing his hands joyfully, 
he said, ' ' Dignowity, I am your best friend. I know you 
have a heart like a bushel measure, and some sense, but 
for goodness' sake quit going to the Sherman Court- 
house." I answered, "I have to save justified interests 
and the Courthouse is there for the purpose to adjudicate 
them." He : "I know, I know, we have mistreated you, 
we will furnish you our best lawyer, an honest man, he 
shall investigate your claims and you shall receive every- 
thing that is coming to you. Besides, we will give you so 
much money that you can live anywhere with your large 
family, hut you must withdraw your suits or leave Texas. 
Raise your grapes in the Ozark Mountains, in California, 
or for my sake in the New Guinea Isles. You cannot stay 
here. " I : "I have the same right to stay in Texas that 
you have, but state, what do you mean by WE?" I had 
expected that his answer would be diplomatic, evasive 
and non-committal. To my great surprise, N. H. L. 
Decker cast aside all finesse of diplomacy, and met my 
question with a direct and clear answer. He said, "You 
know it." I replied, "Of course I do." He: "We 
know perfectly that you do not fight your causes in court, 
you fight our system, hut let me tell you, sir, our system 
to rule the people (by oppression, by denying justice in 
delaying justice and by promoting injustice) has worked 
satisfactorily for us for over a hundred years (exactly 
one hundred and forty years). We shall not allow a 



30 HIGH TREASON 

change. You have too trusting a disposition — you will 
bear the consequences." I: "Keep your money, Nat. 
I prefer to take the consequences, but as you said you 
are my best friend, I give you the kind warning, stay 
nicely in the background, behind the trunk of a tree, 
otherwise if you come in the foreground, I shoot you." 
We both laughed heartily, shook hands and departed as 
friends. Eight days later I was hounded, arrested with- 
out a warrant, put in prison, left four days without food, 
was tried for insanity and was sent to the madhouse, 
under the false pretence to have been non compos mentis 
thirty years ago in Germany, because of my opposition 
to this strong government, a cruel and unusual punish- 
ment for my audacity to defend our rights against the 
robbers on bench and bar in America, 

I avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate the 
rotten judiciary of the Grayson County Court upon hav- 
ing in its diplomatic service a representative of such 
eminent fitness and so agreeable a personage as the Hon- 
orable N. H. L. Decker. After my return from the 
madhouse fifty-two months after that interview had 
taken place, I saw Mr. Decker again and found that he 
had lost none of his old amiability — but for a diplomatist 
he was admirably frank ! I therefore am indebted to him 
for many pleasant suggestions. 

The ability of the church to grow freely and rapidly 
in the United States belongs to things American ; it does 
not belong in the same sense to things in other countries, 
for instance in France and Germany. In those countries 
the power of the church is naught. To be allowed to 
vegetate at all the church has been forced to make ra- 
tional compromises. The countries mentioned recognize 
a religion which professes no religious doctrine that is 
inconsistent with the truth of philosophy. Such a rejec- 



"AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 31 

tion of dogma does not in any way tend to the subversion 
of morals. On the contrary, it indicates hunger for right- 
eousness to realize in actions what is ideally right and 
just in human nature, resting on the best impulses of 
mankind. He who himself is law, no law does need; 
offends no law, and is a king indeed. 

Why is the victory of philosophy over the dogma of 
the church so slow? The deepest thinker and solver of 
the question of "the why of the thing" that mankind has 
yet produced, is the German philosopher, Immanuel 
Kant. No man can understand philosophy who has not 
earnestly studied his parerga and prolegomena (that is, 
his introductory remarks to the system of critical phil- 
osophy) written in that heavy, circumscribing, juristical 
style of his time, demanding of the reader a deep study 
to perceive it, and seeming to be a foreign language for 
his countrymen. 

This helps to explain how slow the truth gets to be the 
property of the people in general ; that truth that leads 
them to all verity, and what the future is, does tell. A 
philosophical task full of reason as an egg is full of 
meat. The philosophy of brain activity, from the stand- 
point of evolution as well as of comparative anatomy, 
teaches the immortality of our race and its ideals by the 
exaction of physical love. Dogma is untenable under the 
strain of scientific criticism, when in contradiction of 
eternal truths that can be proven by science and are 
verifiable in our daily life by experience. It represents 
the religion of the future. Religion, in order to be stable 
and vital, must be able to stand the test of scientific 
criticism. That religion alone fulfills all demands which 
contains no presumptions incongruous with science and 
is warranted by the verified truths of science. Our ideas 
of God, soul, and immortality must be tenable before the 



32 HIGH TREASON 

tribunal of science — all other doctrines are makeshifts to 
express in symbol or allegory this real truth, veiled and 
misleading to the people. A definite world conception 
underlies all our intellectual life. It is not dogma but 
religion ; it is not creed, but faith ; it is not agnosticism 
(symbol), but positivism (reality) ; it is not mysticism 
(the knowledge of God and spiritual things unattainable 
by the natural intellect), but clear thought, that should 
underlie. Seek truth in simplicity, i.e., in purity of heart, 
and you need not pass out of the body to witness the 
divine presence; you will understand the prophets and 
the gospel aright. Perceive that God has left Himself 
nowhere without a witness, and you will feel that you 
fare well in this world — and in the next, if you believe 
in it, also. 

So it comes about that Theodore Roosevelt in an ad- 
dress before the American Historical Association, once 
gave testimony that it is to Goethe, not to Kant, to 
Browning, not to Spencer, that he gives the palm as 
philosophers, because his favorites use a popular form 
of expression and therefore, so Roosevelt concludes, they 
were able to make their thoughts a popular possession 
and hence were a social force. Mr. Roosevelt admits that 
he has a profound admiration for the specialist of ab- 
stract thought, but confesses to have real respect for 
the master of synthesis, the wielder of an effective, read- 
able, colorful style (a method that draws a general con- 
clusion from particular observation, but abstains from 
analyses). Degustibus non est disputandum (there is no 
disputing about tastes). 

The ideality of Christianity is justified by the uni- 
versal longing for peace and happiness that is implanted 
in the human soul. It glorifies truth in exalted human 
ideas, being not a search after truth, but a pacification 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 33 

of troubled minds, in a certain very human and beautiful 
sense, exemplified especially in the Catholic Church. The 
thirst to confess and to confide with delicate timidity of 
the soul seeking confession, is a universal impulse of the 
troubled heart that its vitality is simply natural, other- 
wise despondency must follow if relief is denied it. The 
reasoning faculty does not make that difference, it thinks 
coldly, clearly, consecutively and logically, representing 
the active functions of racial progress. All systems of 
philosophy agree that an effect could not exist without 
a cause, which involves the primary fact that intelli- 
gence exists, for the reason that nothing can be accom- 
plished without intelligence. It is self-evident also, that 
our capacity to think is not a personal thing. Every 
human being possesses it more or less, and even the high- 
er orders of animals have a measure of it. Yet intelli- 
gence never belonged exclusively to one man or to one 
race, for the history of humanity shows that intelligence 
is a universal heritage. 

The existence of the universe involves the existence 
of a cause which can be conceived as ' ' intelligence. ' ' A 
constant, universal intelligence is the force that creates, 
governs and preserves the universe, as Providence means 
nothing but the logical, consistent and eternal harmoni- 
ous process of the elements that constitute the universe. 
To most persons goes this constant universal intelligence 
under the appellation of God. It should not be hard to 
conceive that God, "The Creator of all things,' ' is pri- 
mary intelligence." Or say, "Mind." It is just the 
same, for mind is the driving force of the laws of Na- 
ture. The poet expressed it correctly who said, 
"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, whose body 
Nature is, and God the soul" — upholding the delicate 
nexus which unites body and mind in inseparable 



34 HIGH TREASON 

union. The one and only cause of all power is 
mind, the first great cause whose stability of immuta- 
ble law man's intellect is eager to demonstrate through 
science, in accordance with his recognition of the unity 
of power of which her phenomena are the diversified 
manifestation. "Divine intelligence ' ' is conceiveable 
only as "spirit/' It is inconceivable therefore that di- 
vine intelligence could do anything that needs to be done 
on earth, and consequently not conceivable that the di- 
vine influence of a sacred shrine can heal an ill person 
as so unsurpassed in simplicity of language with heart- 
rending faith expressed in the world renowned poem of 
Heinrich Heine, ' ' The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar. ' ' The fact 
cannot be denied that ill persons have been cured by 
heartfelt praying to sacred relics, performed with unfal- 
tering faith in their healing power, but the fact also is, 
that if a given picture, or a mental conception gets en- 
tire possession of the mind, as consciousness, then there 
will follow a corresponding activity within the physical 
organism after the law, that every part of the body 
sympathizes with the mind for whatever affects the mind 
the body is affected in proportion. Every man knows by 
experience that the exercise of agreeable sensations and 
ideas is highly salutary on the general health and circu- 
lation of the individual, while painful emotions destroy 
the physiological poise and harmony, actually poisoning 
the blood and secretions as effectually as the absorption 
of a contagious disease or medical agents. 

Granted that the body is exposed and influenced from 
external sources, the mind acts as clearly and distinctly 
on the body as either chemical, mechanical or vital 
agency, because mind is the only power that creates and 
manages all things. Physical suffering does not exist, 
it is always psychic. "We suffer in the degree of our 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 35 

perceptivity, our consciousness, as every natural action 
in the body is directed and influenced by the prevailing 
state of the mind at the time. The effect of a narcotic, 
that suspends consciousness, is proof of it. Selfishness, 
hatred, fear, grief, worry, are emotions that harmfully 
affect the functions of the body, while other sensations 
as unselfishness, love, courage, joy, confidence, hope, sus- 
tain health in a pleasing manner. As their characters 
vary the influence of the emotions upon the body will be 
modified, with the result, that one state of mind is capa- 
ble of producing a disease, another state of mind of ef- 
fecting a cure as in numerous cases is shown by Eli 
Beers, the author of "Mind as a Cause and Cure of Dis- 
ease." 

In the healing related to faith and expectation one can 
easily conceive the marvelous effect, which confidence 
and imagination can produce. The cures attributed to 
sacred relics are the results of this confident imagination. 
Impostors as philosophers alike, know that if any other 
skeleton or garment were substituted for the bones or the 
clothes of the saint, the patient would not less be re- 
stored to health, if he believes to approach the true relics. 
Faith and expectation work such miracles of healing by 
the evidence that they bring into efficient operation every 
characteristic of mind through which healing takes place 
in creating strong impression, mental energy and strength 
of will, which work wonders in retaining abnormal mus- 
cular activity and in expelling morbid or diseased condi- 
tions from the physical organism, while at the same time 
the attention is centered on the part affected. 

Strong impression, mental energy and strength of will, 
are effects and dependent upon emotions for their mani- 
festation. In these emotions resides the healing power 
of the mind, and as much as faith surpasses by far all 



36 HIGH TREASON 

other agents in arousing sensations, it greatly excells 
them all in its power to heal. A harmless medicine could 
produce the same wonderful cure as a sacred shrine, with 
its contents, provided it induces in the patient a mental 
state promotive to this end, even if it did not contain an 
iota of healing virtue. 

Faith and expectation on the part of the patient is 
the active factor in effecting a cure. This confidence is 
a kind of courage, a most desirable quality of mind and 
very essential to the promotion of health. Christ, mod- 
estly and with mildness, reproved the courageous crip- 
ple whom he had cured in saying, "It is thy faith, that 
has helped thee." 

The first great cause must be "self existent" and 
therefore "eternal." Disease (bodily harm) or sin (spir- 
itual harm), can never have anything to do with a good 
cause, because they are destructive; an eternity cannot 
include that which is destructive or destructible. Within 
the royal jurisdiction of eternity there cannot be a sin- 
gle destructive element, therefore sin and disease, which 
are both destructive, cannot exist there. To heal dis- 
eases is a most intelligent act of a physician well-trained 
in his profession. To assume that a quack and charlatan 
of a preacher can accomplish this task to cure spiritual 
harm in all its aspects, is not only unreasonable but a 
very dangerous thing for the patient. 

Christ taught that the kingdom must be found within 
the man ; consequently it must be " a state of mentality. ' ' 
The Jewish word "Immanual," means "God with us," 
nomen est omen (name is sign). Immanuel Kant proved 
the universality of the truth and fulfilled the prophecy 
* ' You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you 
free." Under the "Redeemer," several times referred 
to in the Bible, is indisputably understood the "Mind," 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 37 

for the Bible says "I know that my Redeemer lives. ' ' By 
the perception that this impersonal, invisible Redeemer, 
the power of spirit, shall prevail over all and final ef- 
forts of evil in one 's consciousness that arise of necessity 
from human imperfection and limitation the book of 
Job was written by the Sumerian race, many thousand 
years before Christ was born. According to the histor- 
ical records of that race, God Nitud cursed mankind six 
thousand years before Christ : "That no relief of sorrow 
shall man know till his death.' ' Immanuel Kant was 
the tool that destiny provided to relieve mankind from 
that terrible curse in taking away from mankind its fear 
of the hereafter. . . . and fear is the only thing that 
is the matter with anybody's brain! Forget death and 
there must be little or no reliance on a religious dogma. 
There is no other name given among men whereby we 
could be saved, but by the " right way of thinking^" 
And, therefore, certainly not, believing in matters that 
mean pure spiritual understanding. 

As long as man fears disease he cannot be entirely 
happy. The mental atmosphere of fear is inimical to all 
mental and physical health, i. e., a harmonious adjust- 
ment of organs. Doctors know and often find that a very 
harmless germ and much fear on the part of the patient- 
infected with it, produces fatal results ; while a compar- 
ative state of fearlessness with the presence of so-called 
deadly germs, gives the physician, who has to deal with 
them professionally, near immunity, offering him a fair 
chance not to be infected with them. Heaven is a word 
which like the word God, has no value at all, if it is as- 
sociated with absence of health. Heaven unquestionably 
includes and requires health. Health not only surpasses 
all other possessions, but it is the foundation of them all, 
the sine qua non of material and spiritual good. . . . but 



38 HIGH TREASON 

the American church falsely and fraudulently promul- 
gates the theory that the way to heaven is through dis- 
ease, death and hell, where the fact is, that heaven is at- 
tained just in the proportion that disease, death and fear 
cease. Heaven cannot mean more than an eternal exist- 
ence with perfect happiness. This implies uninterrupted 
life to enjoy it. We are not only alive but we want to 
live. Practically all of us would be willing to live for- 
ever, if we could only be assured to be happy forever. 
That this is not the case Nature takes care of it. So com- 
mon is the instinct, or the desire to live, that it is ex- 
pressed axiomatically in the current maxim: Self-pre- 
servation is the first law of nature. The American 
Protestant Church has so generally perceived that uni- 
versal desire to live that in the comparatively short time 
of a nation's life of one hundred and forty years, she 
gathered the fabulous riches of six thousand million dol- 
lars worth of property from the people of the United 
States for political purposes, following therein the me- 
dieval theology that a person was not properly prepared 
for heaven unless he was thoroughly afraid of hell ; not- 
withstanding that the Bible says, "Fear is torment." 
The Bible did not know why fear is torment, but our 
learned physicians well know that fear deteriorates and 
destroys brain cells, inflicting defective thought proced- 
ure upon the individual afflicted therewith. Health and 
fear are opposites, the one is a legitimate and meritable 
incident of heaven, the other has no place therein. The 
only thing that lives forever is "Mind." Take away 
thought, or consciousness, and matter does neither think 
nor live. In this, Mark Twain was right, in pretending 
that the riskiest thing a man can do is, to go to bed, to 
sleep, so at least was his contention — and to sleep is to 
die, the two conditions being alike. The Jewish morning 



AGAINST OUE CONSTITUTION 39 

prayer is : 1 thank you God for giving hack my soul! i. e. 
consciousness. We are conscious of nothing but our sen- 
sation. To the senses suspended animation is suspended 
consciousness. To the intellect suspended consciousness 
touches near upon trance during sleep. 

Thoughts alone constitute education, for the reason 
that thoughts and words are not contraband. Man needs 
only to make them his own and they are his property, 
no matter who the teacher was that taught him, sup- 
posing that the thoughts are well perceived ; what is not 
thoroughly understood, is not possessed. A dutiful 
student acquires knowledge by learning and memorizing 
his subjects with earnestness, till he is sure that it 
is well engraved into his cortex, the seat of memory. He 
only needs, when once this engraving is done right, to 
open the vault in his brain where it is stored away, and 
without any difficulty to the owner of the brain it records 
its contents with the accuracy of a phonographic roll 
of Thomas Edison. On this principle is founded our 
educational system and therewith our racial progress and 
evolution. Self-evidently this perfectness requires train- 
ing, but once acquired, it acts infallibly, so infallibly 
that, supposing it should fail at the moment, the owner 
only needs to give the command of his want and he may 
go quietly to the performance of his daily work. Quite 
without his doing, suddenly the electric circuit is closed 
and the record, true to the single word, drops over the 
step of his consciousness. To explain this phenomenon 
anatomically would lead me over the frame of my sub- 
ject ; it is enough to say it is there and a cause to admire 
the marvelous construction of human brain, forming the 
unsurmountable barrier that divides the animal kingdom 
from mankind. The German language, for instance, 
says, "Ein gelehrter," that means, a man who acquires 



40 HIGH TREASON 

knowledge by being taught it. The English language is 
more precise; it says, "A learned man/' That means, 
a man who acquired the knowledge by the process of 
learning it. 

The abuse of the Protestant church in America in 
heaping wealth upon wealth for political purposes will 
eventually meet the fate of all heaps — to fall. All church 
meetings are a business scheme and have no other pur- 
pose, but to collect money from the members; and the 
preacher is candid enough to admit that his counsel to 
save their souls from hell-fire, that not exists, deserves as 
just a fee as the counsel of the lawyer on how to get a 
divorce. Satan, the faithful ally and mutual friend of 
the evangelists and revivalists of the Protestant church 
of the United States, like Mephisto in Goethe's " Faust," 
confesses (and he knows what he is talking about) : — 

The church has a stomach healthy, 
Has eaten up whole lands as forfeit, 
And never yet sustained a surfeit. 
The church alone, without a question, 
Has for ill-gotten goods the best digestion. 

Christianity has transmitted the conception of justice 
in actions of love. Christian morality, therefore, is based 
on the law of love — is personal and social, and in its na- 
ture cannot be political. Therein the church fails. Her 
longing is to rule the people by the power of her money. 
The money that she collects is a fruit of labor. In the 
valuation of money and labor, labor is higher in value, 
but the laborer deserves the highest consideration. The 
church enjoys the privilege that her property, serving 
religious purposes, is free from assessment of taxes. By 
this fact the property of the church grows like an ava- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 41 

lanche of snow, going down a steep hill, increasing the 
power of the church for political intrigues rapidly. The 
expression "Religious purposes," is flexible and elastic 
from earth to the star Sirius, whose light rays need four- 
teen years to reach the earth. The time inevitable must 
come where the inhabitants of the United States must 
break the political influence of the church, by taking out 
of the hands of the church the administration of the 
money and administering it themselves. The right of 
the American people to revolt against the tyranny of the 
church and the legal profession is as inalienable as 
their right to breathe. The church logically has no right 
to object to this action; we shall use her money for re- 
ligious purposes only. The religion of our time is labor, 
not in the abstract sense of usefulness, but in the sense of 
co-operation. The invalid laborer is the saint of our time. 
We shall use the funds of the church gathered from the 
people for the religious purpose to support the invalids 
of labor in the state, so that a sixty-year-old laborer needs 
not to sorrow, if the crust in his pantry does reach till 
tomorrow. The French nation did so as soon as the 
power of the church grew unendurable. 

The dogma of Christ has a bloody history. In igno- 
rance of its ethical truth its fanatic priests, believing to 
be consistent Christians have wrought more misery upon 
mankind in seventeen hundred years than reason could 
suggest in seventeen hundred thousand million years. 
They undoubtedly would use fire and cross with all the 
venom and force of the inquisition in our time, regard- 
lessly to make proselytes, if the police only would allow 
them to employ such wicked means for the enlightenment 
of the people. 

In the newer and the newest time the Protestant 
church of the United States eagerly follows up the mate- 



42 HIGH TREASON 

rialistic thought to gather riches for the purpose to gain 
with them political power and influence. Intellectual 
thought and idealism is left to the laity and I am glad 
to say that it gradually, hut surely, begins to manifest it- 
self. It has already attained wider recognition and a 
strength that promises to become a very potent influence 
for good and to carry everything before it in not too 
remote a time. As long as the majority of the people are 
too soft and delicate of brain, because of insufficient de- 
velopment of reason they will believe that a diabolic 
spirit finds expression through an all perfected being and 
will fill the churches. There is no hope that they will 
give up the doctrine of man's depravity, a very low 
opinion of self and others, so persistently taught by a 
faithless, greedy clericalism, that hitherto has failed to 
relieve suffering mankind and to help every struggling 
soul to a purer, nobler and more perfect life. 

True Christianity not only requires intellectuality, but 
the highest morality and spirituality, understood as glory 
to God in Heaven, on Earth, peace and good will to 
man. If good deeds are the results of good thoughts, 
misery, suffering and injustice in our country must be 
the consequences of lack of thought. Just as no man is 
a great man unless he is a good man, so no thoughts are 
great thoughts that are not good thoughts! 

Last, but not least : In our state there are living about 
four million souls. From this population are confined 
as insane in eleemosynary institutions about seven thou- 
sand five hundred persons, and about five hundred in- 
sanes are detained in jail. Fifteen per cent of these most 
unfortunate human beings are religiously crazy, that is, 
their mentality is unbalanced. The hunger of their souls 
for righteousness was not appeased with the wholesome 
food of the truth. False prophets of the truth, spiritual 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 43 

charlatans, nourished their fear of the hereafter in a 
way that unbalanced them in the extreme on the spiritual 
side of their nature. Lost for this world, an enormous 
waste of human energy, they converse about devils and 
angels, suffering from that "fearsome torment" to which 
the Bible refers. Something must be wrong; either the 
dogma is wrong or its teaching is wrong, to have that ef- 
fect. The persons afflicted thus are incurable. What 
profiteth a man that he gains the reputation to be a 
church member yet lose his health ? Read, learn, mark, 
think it over, and digest what a howling the preachers 
would make, fully justified thereto, if the habitual 
excessive use of Barley Corn should cause such a stag- 
gering loss of human lives to the amount of twelve 
hundred men in our state. They are mouse still on this 
subject! The percentage of those dangerously afflicted 
mentally caused by the excessive habitual use of alcoholic 
drinks in our insane asylum is 0.35% of the insane, of 
which 65% are curable; a ridiculously low figure of loss 
of human lives caused by the abuse of alcohol as com- 
pared with the tremendous loss that the false teaching 
of dogma creates to our community. 

To my surprise, in comparing statistics, I find that 
the percentage of insanity caused by syphilis is only a 
fraction lower than that caused by the teaching of dogma. 
There is no cure for this mental disease, if its physical 
cure is neglected while it is in its first stage of develop- 
ment. That syphilis is a social evil of the worst, the 
greatest danger to our race, no reflective man can or 
will deny. The human being that suffers mentally from 
it, suffers so horribly that the real suffering must be in- 
describable. Besides destroying promising young life, 
the slow, creeping progress of that terrible mental disease 
must be an unspeakable condition of horror, a state of 



44 HIGH TREASON 

mundane hell to the person afflicted with it. If I were 
a physician I should provide a medicine that would have 
the soothing effect to remove all anguish of the soul and 
all physical pain from that sort of patients radically and 
forever, for humanity's sake, and conscience would not 
bite me from the standpoint that the real efficiency of a 
physician can only be secured when based on service to 
mankind — love ! 

The sum of all virtues is social justice to the indi- 
vidual, it is the only principle of human association, that 
is practical ! "What does the government of the state of 
Texas do to lessen the above mentioned evils ? Nothing ! 
absolutely nothing ! ! As this fact is true, is not the bear- 
ing of the government indefensible from every view of 
law, justice and popular rights ? Is its criminal neglect 
not disreputable and wrongful before the moral sense of 
the community and its own conscience? Both diseases 
are not an individual, but a grave social affair, because 
both diseases are a public business from the view point 
that they are an alarming public calamity. Make war 
on those diseases, that cause more death and misery, so 
deep as only human misery can be to our nation, than 
all battles that we have ever fought. In these circum- 
stances, is our government an efficient government ? No, 
a thousand times, No ! ! ! Its feebleness and incapability 
to rule is a diabolic crime on ourselves and our posterity ! 

What is our government for ? Do we exist for the sake 
of a form of the government, or is our government, in 
all forms, simply an instrument by which we wish to 
serve the best public interests ? Is it better for an indi- 
vidual than for the state to suffer wrong? The consci- 
entious point of view would be, that it were much better 
for a state, that could not give an individual justice, to 
perish in the endeavor to do so, than for society to main- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 45 

tain the prestige of an institution through a disregard 
for the right of one person! If the honor of the state 
is questioned, all that we hold dear is questioned — and 
no exertion should be spared to set the state right, by the 
removal of such a national stain. To any man who be- 
lieves with all his heart in this great democratic state, 
called Texas, such a condition of misadministration is 
intolerable ! Because it is not a government by the peo- 
ple but a sham government, in which the will of the peo- 
ple is constantly defeated, and their rights are wilfully 
infringed. 

There are no rights against the rights of the people, 
said Abraham Lincoln! Our legal profession and the 
church should perceive clearly and duly take to heart 
that truth ! ! ! 



46 HIGH TREASON 



VI. 

The unrest of the American people moves as Nature 
moves, slowly, surely, irresistibly, forward ! As we have 
not an iota of a fact that leads us to believe that nature 
intends to stop moving, so the American nation moves in 
a visible unrest, which promises to lead it to some better 
thing ! 

By nativity I am a German, by choice I am an Amer- 
ican. We Americans of German extraction are in good 
faith Americans, and we give ample proof of that. Coelum 
non animum mutant, qui trans mare cur runt, i. e. They, 
who come over the ocean, change the sky, but do not 
change their heart, or : The nature of man may change 
with a new environment, but his coin of realm has a fixed 
and dependable value. The first impression that we Ger- 
mans received on coming over to America, after the crea- 
tion of the German empire, was that the American people 
did not press us warmly to their loving hearts as prom- 
ised. To the contrary, their bearing was haughty towards 
the new-comers, not to say suspicious. They considered 
us as a fertilizer of Kultur, a necessary evil, an organized, 
scientific and efficient force without restraint of morals. 
We have faithfully carried out our commission and fully 
met their requirements in slowly but surely pressing 
upon them our ideas and our ideals irresistibly as nature 
does, in accordance with their expectation, with the re- 
sult that after its amalgamation with the American peo- 
ple the German element is an important factor in the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 47 

household of this nation, and must be reckoned with as 
such. Our president, Woodrow Wilson, knows it and so 
does Theodore Roosevelt! 

The weakness and fault of the German character is in 
intimate connection with that which makes it, in its kind, 
so strong and important. The Germans, if put before 
a problem to solve, have the old, old habit to think it 
over, to smoke it over, and to drink it over. They open 
a new cask of wine as that, from which they had drunk 
before in such instances, expecting from its undiffused 
spirit, to receive the revelation requisite to overcome the 
difficulties by a greater activity of their teeming brains. 

Our constitution claims to secure the sanest, the most 
just, the most humane, and the most democratic govern- 
ment in existence on the globe. If the American nation 
would acquire the old, old habit of the Germans and think 
it over, smoke it over, and drink it over, it would come 
to the conclusion that that pretence is a shameless lie, an 
enormous fraud, perpetrated upon the entire world! 
Under the wholesome influence of that conception the 
nation would gain the courage to plunge the Statue of 
Liberty, once erected in the Bay of New York, into the 
ocean, where it is the deepest, and before doing it, would 
scratch into its granite the words, "Our justice, i. e., lib- 
erty, is a confounded blunder ! ' ' Drunk with repugnance 
to itself, it would take a broom and sweep out all the 
trash in its own house before it presumed to have cause 
and justification to dictate rules of life to nations far 
above it. In this state of mind, perceiving its feebleness 
and incapability to perform the proper function of a gov- 
ernment, the nation would be deeply ashamed over its 
brawling wherewith it thought to frighten its noble 
neighbor, who has an honest past and a brilliant future, 
fighting for his life. 



48 HIGH TREASON 

We Americans are too sober and have too soft a brain 
to conceive that Nature is always being made. What 
seems to be an end is always a beginning, a divine event- 
fulness in the whole progress of evolution of mankind, 
therefore we do not know that we are one hundred and 
forty years behind the times ; physically we have grown 
rapidly, but intellectually we are unable to answer the 
questions of life of the present time satisfactorily to our- 
selves, much less to our wise and prudent neighbors. We 
are too sober and our brains are too soft and we feel 
our want of nobility as we feel the grave reproach of a 
dastardly crime, therefore we are unable to be cheer- 
ful among ourselves because our actions do not give us 
satisfaction. What we miss is a contented spirit, a pure 
heart, a kind and loving disposition, a generous apprecia- 
tion of the great merits of others, that is what makes 
us dissatisfied. We most heartily miss a modest opinion 
of self, humility and the right understanding of what the 
word charity really stands for! Only once every two 
centuries it happens that is born to a nation a broad- 
minded statesman of real greatness and pride, who acts 
nobly and unselfishly like George Washington. When, 
after our war of Independence with England, war broke 
out between England and France, that same France 
that had supported us in our struggle with England, 
George Washington declared the United States neutral. 
In dramatic manner he forbade by death penalty any 
exportation of arms and ammunition to the belligerents. 
From the fine point of national pride and codes of jus- 
tice this great man conceived a fair neutrality and faith- 
fully dealt with it. He did not foster in any way the 
political aims of one or the other of the belligerents 
by the sale of arms and ammunition as our present Pres- 
ident, Woodrow Wilson, does, either in the interest of 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 49 

the money-grabbing corporations that own ammunition 
and armor plants, or of a tacit alliance with the allies. 

If Woodrow Wilson again publicly should give expres- 
sion that he is imbued with the highest ideals and causes 
of humanity, in the face of the deplorable fact of foster- 
ing the sale of arms and ammunition to the belligerents, 
with the sickening horror of their effects, such boasting 
would indicate either a chronic absence of mind or a 
chronic blind shame on his part, and his proclamation 
would be taken as a personal note. In my opinion, he 
has no right, from the high chair of the Presidency that 
he at present occupies, in the name of the American 
nation, to define our neutrality as " strictest ' ' (another 
neutrality does not exist), pretending that it rests upon 
the deep foundations of the highest ideals of humanity 
and justice, while the conducting of it under his leader- 
ship obviously is the essence of libel of humanity, abhor- 
rent to its principles, a burning disgrace to the Amer- 
ican nation, and a dastardly crime on mankind. 

The Dallas Morning News, whose editor probably never 
smelled powder in a trench of the belligerents of the 
present war raging in Europe, thus saving his credit 
for rationality, takes another point of view from mine 
on the matter of the sale of arms and munitions to the 
amount of billions of dollars by the United States, in the 
face of its solemn declaration of strictest neutrality. He 
regards this conduct as moral action of the highest order, 
by which the United States, the only great nation still 
at peace, justly deserves and certainly gains the world's 
highest respect and admiration. He says: "The United 
States is disgraced abroad only by those who themselves 
discredit it, who because of party bitterness, or the de- 
sire to be witty at any cost, are cowardly enough to talk 
about a humiliation which exists only in their own minds. 



50 HIGH TREASON 

The world respects the United States for doing what its 
people believe to be right, and few forms of disloyalty 
are more contemptible than the persistent attempts which 
a few hot-heads make to create a disgrace which does 
not exist." 

Had the editor logically closed with, "Hurrah for 
Woodrow Wilson and our right to make money out of 
Europe's distress," he would indeed have been "witty 
at any cost." A hero in his own mind, he should go 
fighting in the German trenches to learn the horrifying 
effect of a dum-dum bullet of American make that hits 
his own anatomy. Assuredly this excellent opportunity 
for forming an opinion of substance and value would 
refine his judgment upon "doing what the people of 
the United States believe to be right." He would per- 
ceive that the principles of humanity, the deepest and 
most sublime reality, which are unchangeable and eter- 
nal, are right; and the following of greed after gold, 
that tends to destroy human lives and human welfare, 
creating death and indescribable human suffering and 
misery, is wrong — a bloody business that will be recorded 
in the history of this horrible war as an everlasting 
shame to the enlightened nation called the United States, 
worthy to be seriously rebuked and justly condemned. 
Accountable at the bar of public opinion for every act 
of his administration is Woodrow Wilson alone — our 
neutrality is not a badge of honor, but one of shame, 
publicly proclaimed as such by Theodore Roosevelt. 

Before the criticising heart and brain of history, the 
world's Tribunal, we must appear as a nation to have 
been formed by the Creator in a mood of wrath, denying 
us all beauties except the beautiful voice of a bragging 
ass, unconscious that better hopes and better motives 
call us than those of the past — that gross social, political 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 51 

and economic wrong and injustice, a hundred and forty 
years old, that prevails, from which we so deplorably 
suffer today. 

The delicacy and dignity of a nation must lie in its 
heart; human relation is governed by it; it cannot be 
taught by a dancing master, its secretary of state, to-wit, 
for nothing would be in it. Predestination is a track on 
which our nation runs like an engine ; if it runs off the 
track it inevitably must destroy itself; on the track it 
has the fullest freedom of motion. We must stand firmly 
for the protection of equal rights to all, regardless of 
what theoretical reforms may be advanced by politicians. 
The guaranteeing of the rights offered in the federal con- 
stitution must be recognized by the states forming the 
Union and rigorously upheld and protected by the cen- 
tral government against the slightest violation on their 
part, in order that each citizen may enjoy without hin- 
drance, to the fullest, these granted rights. We must 
keep to the constitution as the highest thing. We cannot 
live for the moment only. We must be capable of 
sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of 
great conceptions, and not close our eyes complacently 
to the duties of the future, and to the pressing prob- 
lem of national life that awaits solution — and a quick 
one! 

The nation must be free from every influence of the 
church and the judiciary in politics. We cannot allow 
their most foul combination to rule the land in contra- 
diction of our rights. We cannot allow that the dogma 
of the church should send thousands and thousands of 
men to the Insane Asylums. We must close her doors 
in one way or another, as a menace to public safety. 
This is, from my point of view, the only way to save 
human lives and homes from destruction and to raise 



52 HIGH TREASON 

this nation from political disruption and feebleness to 
the forefront of other nations. We cannot allow the 
church, with her prohibition swindle, assisted therein by 
the legal profession, to impair the personal liberty of 
the individual citizen, to seize and destroy his property 
without indemnity, under the false pretense of social 
good, just because it pleases her to do so. Personal lib- 
erty is the most sacred guarantee of all guarantees of 
our constitution, without which all other guarantees are 
naught. Every activity of the state must logically be 
beneficial and wise, to arouse, promote and purify the 
independence of free reasoning men, otherwise it acts 
destructively. Personal liberty is the chief power of 
an honest mind. To impair this liberty by these unjust 
anarchical prohibition laws, we must then raise either 
hypocrites or cowards, because these laws are strictly 
against reason and equity, and therefore unworthy of 
a liberty loving people. Naked facts have for the modern 
man something very attractive ! 

I am for a good cause, supposing the good cause hon- 
estly pays for its right of way. The right way to acquire 
another man's property, legally to be entitled to dis- 
pose of the same after one's wishes, is to buy the prop- 
erty, not to steal it. Under the false pretense to pursue 
a good cause the prohibitionists have wilfully and mali- 
ciously destroyed thousands of legitimate businesses in 
the value of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of 
property in the United States without paying one cent 
of indemnity to their victims, an enormous wrong, a 
flagrant and gross violation of our constitution. This 
crime was only possible because of the rottenness of our 
judiciary and legislatures in the states in their shameful 
servitude to the Protestant church to further her friv- 
olous, distorted aims, a blasphemy of the dogma that she 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 53 

teaches, caring not a bit if she causes heart-aches, sorrow 
and tears. 

The Protestant church of the United States has 
conceived long ago that she can get her fill with- 
out the inconvenience of hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, a state of mind that the gentle Naza- 
rene proclaimed as the only legal right and the sole 
justification to enjoy abundance here and hereafter. 
Christ has said, "I am the truth." If he lived today 
he would be compelled to charge the Protestant church 
of the United States guilty of moral corruption, a false 
pretense of divine worship, morally and legally not en- 
titled to the name of a Christian church. The sun of 
truth that enlightens the world with its own light recog- 
nizes that the bearing of the Protestant church of the 
United States is a perfected divorce from Christ, a 
faithlessness that offends those who witness it. 

Under the immoral influence of the rottenness of our 
judiciary and legislatures we do not seem willing to 
advance along the path of development of sound politics 
and creative culture that a free people should follow 
cheerfully. Our nation seems to have lost that ideal 
enthusiasm which constituted the greatness of its his- 
tory, therefore it foolishly brawls about its greatness, 
but shirks the sacrifices it demands. The true sign of 
civilization is the frank recognition of brotherhood, irre- 
spective of race and color. The love of ordered free- 
dom, abhorrence of what is mean and cruel, and cease- 
less devotion to the claims of the highest and purest 
justice in public life — only with these can we promote 
the welfare, the peace, and the happiness of our fellow- 
men. Only with these can we secure a joyful develop- 
ment of national life. Not to manifest these things in 
the ordinary course of life — in his home, in his business, 



54 HIGH TREASON 

in his relation to and with the people among whom his 
daily work is performed — a citizen neither exhibits will 
nor virtue, neither courage nor constancy, neither cour- 
tesy nor kindness, neither hope nor faith nor love, but 
cowardice, selfishness, indifference and even contempt, 
unconscious that the individual can perform no nobler 
and more moral action than to pledge his life on moral 
convictions, and to devote his own existence to the good 
cause of all, i. e., sincerest patriotism. 

I claim the main business of the United States is 
to protect not only the nation's flag, but every legiti- 
mate right that an American citizen has, not only 
wherever he be abroad, but, first and foremost, in the 
state where he lives. The fair document of the Dec- 
laration of Independence from the English rule means 
nothing to us unless we append to it what we think our 
liberty consists of, and make it fit into our conditions, 
to be worthy of the good men who drew this great docu- 
ment. Every civilized government would justly be 
charged with impotence and incompetence, unable to 
perform its function properly, would it misconstrue 
right, liberty and justice, as we allow to be done in 
our United States a million times a day. Among all 
political abuses that our form of government has com- 
mitted is its feebleness and incapability to uphold our 
constitution, the most contemptible because it. is the sin 
against its very existence. 

The first duty of a nation from the viewpoint of 
democracy and social justice is to defend the rights, 
lives and liberty of its citizens from internal lawless- 
ness committed by the states. Our state form at the 
present time stands on the greatest issue of its history. 
Once we fought our greatest war, and the states which 
represented union and federation put an end once and 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 55 

forever to the unlimited sovereignty of any individual 
state. In our civil war there was established the su- 
premacy of the federal power in national affairs over 
the states. The next war will establish the unlimited 
power of the federal government over the so-called home 
politics in the states. War is a biological necessity of 
the first importance, a regulative element in the life of 
a nation, and as necessary for its sound development as 
the struggle of the elements in nature. I cannot find 
any other basis for peace in a nation but justice. Foster 
that which undermines this basis, and war must inevi- 
tably follow, as sure as the sun rises every morning in 
the east. 

War is not the expression of a mere brutal, physical 
force without reason; it is a might and will settlement 
either between the people and their ruler, as revolution, 
or between spiritual collective personalities, called States 
or Nations. This settlement of might and will power 
can only be achieved by physical force for the purpose 
to show and to prove who of the contestants deserves 
the supremacy of dignity as a reward for the mani- 
festation of the most potent sovereignty of spirit — 
from the spirit spnngs the war, for the spirit is the 
war! This perception of the essence of war is estab- 
lished by History and approved by Philosophy. As long 
as intelligence leads the human race in its evolution, as 
long must war in any form occur in the pursuit of its aim 
to nourish and strengthen intelligence to perform its 
function properly, the progress of the human race. 

At present the states ruled by the legal profession 
(judiciary and legislatures) and the Protestant church 
do not govern at all. To uphold this lawless state of 
affairs in the states, the legal profession and the legis- 
latures, for home consumption, make the false pretense 



56 HIGH TREASON 

that a state cannot be made responsible for doing wrong ; 
yet they go so far as to pretend that even a county 
cannot be called to account for violating our laws. The 
state is an association of individuals transacting busi- 
ness as a single person, and therefore is responsible for 
its acts. It is endowed with certain rights and curbed 
by limitations laid down by statutes, A county is an 
instrumentality of the government enacted by the state, 
and judicial in character, whose public policy must be 
strictly in accordance with the general principle of right 
and wrong that constitutes the law, i. e., the rule of civic 
conduct of a person. That the state should be anything 
more than an institution for the protection and the safe- 
guarding of the happiness of individuals and be con- 
sidered a spiritual collective personality, leading a life 
of its own and beyond the life of the individual, are 
thoughts utterly foreign to an American mind, absolutely 
outside of American philosophy, unconscious that the 
doctrine of an irresponsible state whose necessities are 
his laws, is essentially an anarchical doctrine, incom- 
patible with the principles of democracy, where these 
laws stand above its conscience, above its religion and 
above its honor! Law ideally represents the true form 
of human relations and the only way of fulfilling them. 
We, the people, constitute the state; the state exists for 
our mutual advantage; we do not exist on its account. 
The fact is that every such corporate act proceeds from 
a human will, and individual conscience is responsible 
therefor. Consequently corporate wrongdoing is the 
wrongdoing of human principles, the wrongdoing of a 
soul. If the law is made to reach personal guilt, if it 
finds out and punishes the guilty will from which the 
wrong proceeds, then corporations have a soul. — I shall 
dispense with the soul of the State of Texas, for its 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 57 

guilty will from which its wrong proceeded, as far as 
I am concerned, on the ground that states, as nations, 
are persons responsible for their acts. This fact is essen- 
tial, not accidental but absolute, as philosophy expresses 
the idea. 

Humanity involves . the acquirement of morality ; 
morality, once acquired by mankind, is permanent, rest- 
ing on the deep foundation of justice. The fundamental 
rights of humanity cannot be abandoned in the Land 
of the Free and the Home of the Brave, that boasts to 
the whole world as marching at the front of humanity 
and civilization, guided therein by constitutions, doc- 
trines of right, codes of justice and national aspiration. 

My being sent to the Insane Asylum has been carried 
out with the most palpable violation of the dictates alike 
of right and of humanity in a manner that the federal 
government cannot but regard as wanton, without the 
slightest color of justification, because it must consider 
the sacred and indisputable rights of an American citi- 
zen to his personal liberty and the universally recog- 
nized dictates of humanity ; thus it is forced to the con- 
clusion that there is but one course it can pursue, and 
can have no choice but to give redress to my grievances 
in accordance with a just conception of the right of 
mankind, and it must take this view with the utmost 
solemnity and firmness. The bill of rights of state and 
national constitution provide that every person for an 
injury done him shall have the right and the remedy 
by due course of law, by trial and by jury, to fix and to 
determine the extent of the compensation which should 
be awarded him for the injuries he suffered. I shall 
insist upon it that the injuries I have suffered from 
the State of Texas are violative of the guaranteed rights, 
and abhorrent to the principles of humanity. 



58 HIGH TREASON 

The Government of the United States cannot decline 
to call the State of Texas to strictest accountability for 
the willful violation, with malice aforethought and 
fraught of the essential rights of man, imposed on me. 
This great wrong done me must await vindication in 
the United States court in a suit for damages, with the 
expectation of a fair and impartial arbitration of my 
just claim, whatever viewpoint the legal profession of 
Texas insists upon to take as to the contrary. My state- 
ment embraces the points of law in pure and simple 
legal truism, and the points of fact in a clear and concise 
manner. 

It is a false pretense of the legal profession in Texas, 
a fallacy of legal science verging on criminal misinter- 
pretation, to proclaim that it is a general rule, and 
therefore a law by custom, where a governmental duty 
rests upon the State of Texas or on any of its instru- 
mentalities, there is absolute immunity in respect to all 
acts and agencies. By such an inconsistent pretense, a 
perfected usurpation, the legal profession of Texas not 
only has forfeited every claim to be called democratic, 
but confesses lack of solid professional learning and a 
lamentable poverty of reasoning faculty carried into 
law practice to the great detriment of the country. 

The question which it seems to me that most demands 
clarification is : "Who executes our will laid down in rules 
and regulations given by both houses — our President or 
the Supreme Court of the United States? It would be 
a surprising circumstance that one citizen should allow 
partisan feeling or personal ambition to creep into the 
discussion of this fundamental and serious question, but 
sincerest patriotism. I feel it difficult indeed to 
approach this subject without deep emotion, as it should 
be the pride of the nation always to employ her money 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 59 

to the highest purpose, not for abuses, and love the 
principles upon which the political life is founded. Our 
nation should be ready to fight any time for the vindi- 
cation of her character and her honor, and earnestly 
stand for the integrity of her own convictions. She 
should firmly stand for the maintenance of our liberty, 
to develop our institutions without hindrance, as faith- 
ful keeper of our inheritance, our constitution. Fact 
is, we pretend to love that precious document very much 
and to he ever ready to defend it against every con- 
tingency. Facts generally speak for themselves, and 
are speaking louder than anybody who controverts them, 
supposing the moral force of righteousness and the hope 
and the liberty of the nation are behind them. 

Our constitution reads: The judicial power of the 
United States consists of one Supreme Court and several 
inferior courts. The judges of all these courts shall re- 
ceive for their services a compensation. All judges of 
the land therewith are rightly declared our servants, 
for whose services we pay. The only President who 
ever represented the nation without infringement was 
George Washington. Under the second President of 
the United States, John Adams, our constitution was 
annulled. If this is true, then from John Adams to 
Woodrow Wilson all our Presidents have been sham 
Presidents; in other words, the people have not been 
represented by their Presidents at all. Under John 
Adams, who was a lawyer himself, was developed 
the Supreme Court. There was given to the Supreme 
Court a power without parallel in the history of nations, 
making it the greatest and most majestic tribunal in 
the world. Chief Justice Marshall of this court at 
once abused its power in the interests of the legal pro- 
fession, in establishing the principle that the Supreme 



60 HIGH TREASON 

Court has the power to nullify and set aside any 
law passed by congress and senate, could even annul 
the signature of the President — the most shameful be- 
trayal of trust of public servants, the most scandalous 
fraud that one set of men has ever perpetrated on a 
nation! Our constitution tells the highest and the low- 
est what he shall do and what he shall not do. The law- 
maker, the judge, shall not go beyond them. The exec- 
utive shall do this and shall do it so, and shall not 
exceed. What we call freedom is the result of consti- 
tutional guarantee in the meaning: "You shall not trans- 
gress or violate the rights of others or exceed your power ! 
— we hire servants, pay them well to interpret and up- 
hold these fine constitutions zealously and effectively, 
and the first act they perform is, they take the whole 
pie, run off with our church, and make themselves our 
masters." 

Of these nine gentlemen who compose the Supreme 
Court of the United States, Allen Benson, the author 
of the pamphlet "The Usurped Power of the Courts, " 
says: "Not one of them is the President, not one of 
them is a member of Congress, not one of them was 
elected by the people, not one of them can be dismissed 
by the people. Yet a mere five of these nine men can, 
if they choose to do so (and they have frequently chosen 
to do so), undo the work of the President, the work of 
Congress, and set at nought the will of a nation of 
101,000,000. They can tell the President, the Congress 
and the people that when they made a law they meant 
either more or less than they said. They can take out 
or put in, add or subtract. No power can stay their 
hands, because everything is below them and nothing 
is above them. Even the constitution of the United 
States is not above them. If it were above them, it 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 61 

would constitute a barrier beyond which they could 
not go." 

So it comes about that Judge Hughes of the United 
States Supreme Court, racing for the next Presidency 
because of patriotism, as he says, gives up a higher posi- 
tion than we can offer him in electing him President. 
We should not accept a sacrifice that humiliates the 
offerer ; we should be too proud to do so, from the view- 
point of self-respect and a little bit of sense of justice. 

Soundly asleep for one hundred and thirty long years, 
we dreamed of enjoying the blessings of a wise consti- 
tution. Awakened to the reality, we find it was a beau- 
tiful dream, symbolizing an unfulfilled wish. We 
dreamed that dream day and night — the first, a fanta- 
sied wish, whose fulfillment is perfectly obvious; the 
latter, a rebus, an allegory, that has to be interpreted 
so we will know its meaning. Cravings and wishes of 
the human soul persist during the day ; if intense enough, 
they disturb the soul in our sleep ; we call imagination 
to help and attempt to still and satisfy our longing. 
That is the natural way of dream procedure. No won- 
der we find when we awake that our soul is very hungry ! 

Theodore Roosevelt in his campaign for re-election in 
1912, as one of his planks, fought the supremacy of the 
legal profession. He won the votes of the land on this 
plank; but, as the legal profession feared that Roose- 
velt would be the Hercules who was capable of cleaning 
our Augean stable of maladministration of justice, they 
betrayed him, with the help of the church, and Woodrow 
Wilson was elected President! The church, as well as 
the legal profession, knew that they had nothing to 
fear from this politician. Woodrow Wilson undoubtedly 
possesses a master mind, but failed as professor of his- 
tory to draw the right conclusions, inferences and de- 



62 HIGH TREASON 

ductions from this great science, and therefore in the 
great world conflict that at present rages he failed in 
usefulness as President of the United States. His public 
speeches are gems of flowery oratory, but offer little 
substance. They assert that the American people enjoy 
justice and liberty as no other civilized nation on earth. 
His enthusiasm over the unselfishness and the excellence 
of our institutions is so fantastic as to lead him to say : 
' ' Our ideals about humanity [worthy of the great nation 
he represents] are so exorbitantly high that they cannot 
be seen and therefore cannot be perceived by other na- 
tions. ' ' I surmise that Woodrow Wilson writes the word 
"our" with a capital 0, because not the American na- 
tion's perception about humanity, but His perception 
about it is so "exorbe," i.e., outside our earth's orbit. 
A president of the United States of America should 
know that the inability to see something in a vacuum 
is the effect of the law of nature. Where he is kind 
enough to state that the world only comes to one's con* 
sciousness through its appearance, he, as a learned man, 
should perceive that a faint and imperfect representa- 
tion of a comparative deficiency is faithfully expressed 
as a "swindle." A German state's attorney possibly 
would define Woodrow Wilson's "conduct" as: Eine 
hochfahrende irrefiihrende Vorspiegelung falscher That- 
sachen unwiirdig des Presidenten einer grossen hoch- 
geachteten Republic genannt die Vereinigten Staaten 
von Nord Amerika, i. e., a regalistic and misleading 
misrepresentation of real facts unworthy of the presi- 
dent of a great, highly esteemed republic called the 
United States of North America. 

President Woodrow Wilson is fifty-nine years old and 
is a shrewd politician. It cannot be assumed, at least 
not logically, that he does not know our conditions as 



AGAINST OUK CONSTITUTION 63 

they in reality are, therefore his pretenses are conscious 
misstatements of the truth. The certainty of injustice 
in this country has been so great for one hundred and 
forty years that many of those who have profited by it 
regard even a hope of betterment as fantastic. No 
American really believes in just laws or has faith that 
they would be of any service to the people morally or 
materially, otherwise he would be accused of scholastic 
inexperience and sentimentality! Therefore I charge 
President Woodrow "Wilson with gross insincerity to the 
American people and an undue affectation of services 
that he thinks he has performed as their President. His- 
tory, the tribunal of the world, will adjust with divine 
wisdom the competency of his activity as President 
of the United States and put it justly according to its 
merits. 

As candidate for the next presidency Mr. Woodrow 
Wilson was kind enough to solve the mystery about the 
highest ideals of humanity of the United States, "that 
after his opinions could not be understood and there- 
fore could not be perceived by other nations." At 
Shadow Lawn he said: "We were born not to pile up 
material wealth, but to see that the spirit of mankind 
did not lose heart. We were born to prefer justice to 
power, humanity to any form of selfish achievement. We 
raised up, as we have raised up in effigy in the harbor 
of New York, an image of Liberty enlightening the 
world, showing a path of luminous light across the 
waters, which we said, if men would follow it, would 
lead them to a land of justice, to a land of brotherly 
love, to a land where men in co-operation believed in 
each other's rights, to a land where no man sought to 
be another man 's master, but where all men were united 
together in a like comradeship and affection. These are 



64 HIGH TREASON 

the ideals of America/' It is my conviction that an 
appeal to reason always reaches the people. Give the 
people the facts and they can be trusted to draw the 
right conclusion ! 

The Magna Charta, the Great Charter, provides, "No 
freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or 
outlawed, or banished, or any ways destroyed, nor will 
we pass upon him, nor will we send upon unless by the 
lawful judgment of his peers, or the law of the land." 
The ancient English inhibition against taking life, lib- 
erty or property Was expressed with the words "due 
process of law. ' 7 Its meaning is that every citizen shall 
hold- his life, liberty, property and immunities under the 
protection of general rules which govern society. 

The third article of the United States constitution 
provides that the judicial power vested in the United 
States courts shall extend to cases in law and equity 
arising under said constitution, the laws of the United 
States, treaties made, and to controversies between a 
state and citizens of another state, etc. Article 11 of the 
United States constitution, adopted as an amendment, 
provides that the judicial power of the United States 
shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or 
equity commenced or prosecuted against one state by 
citizens of another state or by citizens or subjects of 
any foreign state. 

After this amendment was made there still was held 
up in the third article of our constitution the law author- 
izing suits to be filed in the United States court against 
any state by a citizen of that state. The courts of the 
state of Texas have from the beginning of its existence 
uniformly held that the courts have no authority to 
enforce claims against the government unless the insti- 
tution of such action, or the recognition of such claims, 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 65 

has been expressly sanctioned by law. And however 
clear the right may be, and with every force of reason, 
equity or justice may address itself to the moral sense 
of right, it can be enforced against the government only 
by consent of the government and in the manner the 
government may prescribe. 

This holding of the courts of Texas as to the non- 
responsibility of the state, a collective person, defies not 
only the Great Charter, the Declaration of Independence, 
but also the Constitution of the United States. It grants, 
depending from its will, to sit in its own case, a fraud- 
ulent device to evade responsibility, an outspoken usur- 
pation of power, that is, the government of Texas is a 
government indeed; it governs just as it pleases, ex- 
cluding justice and generosity. It does so in the face 
of the fact that the unlimited sovereignty of a state in 
the Union has been settled once and forever by the 
civil war, i. e., its sovereignty does not exist. It not only 
has been common to designate the Texas government 
democratic, but also its courts, legislature and the 
church pronounce it "the high tower of democracy in 
all the United States." In the true sense in which that 
term is properly used, as defying a government in which 
all its acts are performed by the people, it is about as 
far from it as any other of which we are aware, eager 
to advance its noiseless step like a thief over the field 
of responsibility, therewith claiming to be the ultimate 
arbiter of all constitutional questions — a very dangerous 
doctrine indeed, placing the people under the despotism 
of an oligarchy of the legal profession and the church — 
a stupid defiance of the assertion that a government 
derives its just power from the consent of the governed. 

The state of Texas has no right to sit in a case against 
itself upon the bench. If it does, it practises despotism. 



66 HIGH TREASON 

and my case shows that we are living in Texas under a 
despotic power of the worst. If despotism and freedom 
exist in the same nation, is it not in the nature of things 
that despotism must crowd out liberty if liberty is im- 
potent to crowd out despotism ? The state of affairs 
manifests the deplorable fact that the United States is 
the only great nation on earth that permits an inferior 
state of doing wrong by exceeding the central govern- 
ment, with the result that we have fought the revolu- 
tionary war for one thing and have gotten another. This 
despotism of the state is constantly growing greater. 
If we want despotism we need do nothing — let the legal 
profession and the church have their way and we get 
what is coming to us ; but if we want a republic we shall 
have to put down judge and priest where they belong, 
in telling them, "You are not good enough to rule us 
without our consent ; we will not consent to a thing more 
despotic than the Roman triumvirate and equally in- 
sufferable and fundamental revolutionary as usurpa- 
tion. " Nothing is more certain than that the people 
will not very much longer allow the continuance of this 
despotic rule. The faith in the omnipotence, the wis- 
dom and the impartiality in every court in the United 
States, its Supreme Court not excluded, is absolutely 
gone. This statement is not a theory, but a demon- 
strated fact. The courts arrogate to themselves the pre- 
tension not only to settle judicial questions, but political 
questions first; trampling upon our constitution are 
they, proceeding step by step to a usurpation of juris- 
diction which does not belong to them. If courts go 
outside of a case before them and set up their will and 
issue proclamations to grab unwarranted power, we are 
no more bound by those proclamations than we should 
be by the proclamations of any other body of men acting 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 67 

outside of their jurisdiction. To what purpose are 
powers limited laid down in our Constitution if those 
limits may at any time be trespassed by those intended 
to be restrained? 

As a matter of logic a written constitution in a re- 
public is an absurdity, because the people's will is the 
highest law, that they can change whenever they so 
desire. The constitution is nothing but an expression 
of public policy that is intended to stand until the people 
change their policy; if it were not so, the will of the 
dead would be inflicted upon the living as a barrier 
for any progress. If the United States government 
further allows judicial misconstruction of what is pub- 
lic policy it will find trouble. It is not to assume that 
one hundred million people are going to submit to the 
courts perfected invalidation of our established govern- 
ment whose duty is to determinate and finally to de- 
cide controveries arising between a state and its citi- 
zens in cases of great moment on the same reason that 
such appeals are admitted in all the states of Europe on 
the ground that laws or ordinances of any kind, espe- 
cially of higher courts which fail of execution, are worse 
than none, they weaken the central government and 
expose it to contempt. A central government which 
does not execute its laws or whose operations are stopped 
by a single state's conceived repugnance of it, is the 
most fallacious of all institutions. Uneasiness of the 
people must arise from this wrong. 

I disapprove of the doctrine that courts as expositors 
of the constitution should have the authority to declare 
the national constitution null and void. No nation in 
Europe would tolerate such a judicial despotism. No 
law made in European countries can be set aside by 
courts, nor can t^ey change a letter of it. In the United 



68 HIGH TREASON 

States the Supreme Court can do anything with any 
law what it wants to do with it. Common sense and 
despotic power of the courts cannot exist side by side. 
The charge of usurpation of power is a fact, and the 
facts are. against the courts. The bearing of the courts 
is anarchy pure and simple; it not only is wholly un- 
constitutional, but a judicial procedure most scandalous, 
improper for the interest and liberty of the people. 
From fear that the citadels of ' ' intelligence, " l i dogma ' ' 
and "capital" threatened with unholy invasion might 
fall into the hands of "Jacobins," "freethinkers" and 
"proletarians," this foul combination of "Judiciary," 
"Church" and "Capital" to plunder the people of the 
United States and directly to affect their sovereignty, is 
nothing but united political campaign and graft for 
"influence," "power" and "wealth." 

One should believe that the freedom of an immigrant 
to contract with the United States and the validity of 
this contract could not be prohibited or interfered with 
without violating the federal Constitution, much less 
that the Supreme Court of the United States had a right 
to pass legislation that impairs the obligation of a con- 
tract drawn between the United States and the immi- 
grant citizen. Evidently that is not so. In the case of 
United States vs. Cruikshank, reported in Volume 92 
U. S. Reports, page 542, which was No. 339, October 
Term, 1875, and was decided on March 27, 1876, the 
"high and august judges" of said court decided: "The 
sovereignty for the protection of life, personal liberty 
and property rests solely and alone with the States." 
This decision meant that the States were empowered 
thereby to abridge and infringe life, personal liberty 
and property of their citizens just as they pleased with- 
out any responsibility as to their acts before the Fed- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 69 

era! Government. The court further decided that 
"the States even could curtail the citizen about the 
right of trial by jury, if it wants to, without violating 
in the least the fourteenth amendment of the federal 
Constitution and the Great Charter." The accumu- 
lating effect of these decisions was to grant the States 
the power to nullify all guaranties given by the federal 
government, reducing the same to a position of inferi- 
ority in law as well as in custom. 

Proof: A poor man in a Protestant Church of the 
United States is as welcome to the preacher as a leper is 
to the society of noblemen. The Church has no interest 
for the poor. The poor cannot fill her treasury. But the 
poor man enjoyed the granted inalienable right to vote 
unrestricted. The Church logically concluded that to be 
able to rule the land she must control the voters. As she 
could not control the poor man, who avoided her congre- 
gations from one reason or another, the church was 
unable to convince him from the pulpit of ' ' her utmost 
selflessness." In this circumstances to deprive him, 
willy-nilly, of his right in a seemingly decent way, a 
veiled fraud, was the key to the problem. 

His " Reverend" communicating divine instruction 
to his active mind was quickly blessed with the revelation 
sought : ' ' Put a tax on his inalienable right t6 vote 
unrestricted and, as he most likely has enough expenses 
to keep the wolf from his door instead to spend money 
for political purposes, he will abstain to pay the tax 
whereby his vote is noiselessly conquered, being out of 
question." 

I suppose His " Reverend" then made invoice of his 
stock of public positions from the jailer up to the gov- 
ernor, whose appointments are directed as a reward 
from the clergy, and he was well pleased with his find- 



70 HIGH TREASON 

ings. He blandished here and he threatened there, and 
cringing partisans of the Church, as judges, representa- 
tives, senators and, last but not least, a faithless gov- 
ernor, deeply bowed in reverence to her potent sover- 
eignty of spirit, with the result that on the fools' day, 
the first of April, 1903, the shameful poll tax law was 
born. 

To make the bastard legitimate, that means, the law 
looking innocent, its monetary value was declared as a 
contribution to the school fund, and at the same time 
had the intrinsic merit "spiritually" to curb the will 
of the people from free expression in the prohibition 
movement. In this way was annulled the most impor- 
tant law of the federal Constitution, the main pillar of 
popular government, without any objection on the part 
of its appointed keeper, the Government of the United 
States, from the simple reason that he had nothing to 
object to. 

From the 27th of March, 1876, to the present time, 
twenty million immigrants, or more, that have become 
citizens of the United States (so they thought) have 
received from the federal government the written solemn 
guarantee of protection of their lives, their personal 
liberty and their property on the ground of an existing 
federal constitution as to those points where, de facto, the 
federal government has no right whatsoever to the liberty 
even of contract between individual to individual, much 
less to give a guaranty of protection to an American 
citizen upon American soil. Its assertions and guaran- 
tees, therefore, are based on falsehood in the main, as to 
the facts, otherwise the federal government impossibly 
could have tolerated that enormous wrong that the States, 
years in, years out, have lustily committed on thousands 
of American citizens by wilfully and illegally disposing 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 71 

of their property without paying their victims one cent 
of indemnity, for the sole cause devotedly to foster the 
prohibition swindle in their shameful servitude to the 
Protestant Church. 

Virtually there is not one United States citizen upon 
American soil. Upon its territory are only citizens of 
the various States that the United States Government 
automatically adopts as its citizens while staying in 
foreign countries, or traveling on ships of foreign reg- 
istry, but not until then. As soon as such adopted citi- 
zens return upon American territory their adoption is 
automatically cancelled into the citizenship of the respec- 
tive States wherein they reside. 

If these facts are true, the President, Woodrow Wil- 
son, usurps unwarranted power when he extends the 
federal government's jurisdiction to travelers upon 
American ships, for the reason that the sovereignty of 
the protection of life, personal liberty and property 
rests solely and alone with the States, and the bottoms 
of the ships owned by their citizens are part of their 
territory, over which they alone have jurisdiction, not 
the President of the United States. The candidate for 
the presidency, Mr. Chas. Hughes, in his speech at 
Columbus, promised to favor the sovereignty, to protect 
American citizens in every right with respect to life, 
personal liberty, property and commerce to all nations, 
if he became President. It is assumed that an ex- 
Supreme Judge of the highest court of the land knows 
the most important and most far-reaching decisions of 
said court conscientiously to be guided by them in public 
speeches, so as not to promise more than a President of 
the United States is empowered to comply with. A few 
more such decisions, and all resemblance of our state 
form with a republic is gone. Obviously the judicial 



72 HIGH TREASON 

despotism of the Supreme Court of the United States is 
worse than a despotism maintained by an executive 
visibly undermining the United States as state form. 

No American patriot of clear thought and a heart that 
warmly beats for the welfare of the nation, who has 
read and digested the history of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, is felicitous to hear the lauding of 
this court's excellence in indiscriminating, unlimited 
praise. To the contrary, the deepest indignation and 
greatest repugnance must seize him in the face of that 
morass of injustice, fraud and graft which the state- 
ments of its history reveal. Personally speaking, its 
history creates the impression as if the ''honorable" 
judges for the highest tribunal of the world, with pains- 
taking care and zealous endeavor, had been selected from 
fix-it-specialists of lawyers of the highest type, whose 
hearts must have been devoured by rats, and snakes 
must have nested under their skulls to enable them to 
render decisions that, in substance and in fact, are high 
treason against our Constitution, high crimes against 
the Holy Ghost of the essence of reasons, and an indel- 
lible disgrace for our nation. The unsurpassed falsehood 
of the past of this court to the people has caused that 
deep, wide crack to its usurped, unconstitutional, illegal 
position in our state-form, that will end its career once- 
as abruptly as it was created. When the American people 
become headright by being ripe and digne enough for 
a final settlement of might and willpower between mas- 
ters and their servants, this court will promptly be 
abandoned, never to rise again to its present form of 
usurped dictatorial power, of which we can justly say, 
take it, for all in all the world will never find its like 
again. 

Adoption of constitutional amendments providing for 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 73 

initiative, referendum and the recall of every elective 
officer in the state, including judges, is the only remedy 
we Texans have, and my open letters addressed to mem- 
bers on bench and bar show how urgently we need them. 
California, a long time in the muck of corruption and 
badly suffering under the demoralizing influence of cor- 
porations, especially the Southern Pacific Railroad, 
adopted all three aforesaid amendments to its consti- 
tution, which she never will repeal. Today California 
is the best governed state in the American Union. Polit- 
ical corruption has vanished, and her government is 
strictly a popular government. 

This noted achievement must duly be titled to the 
ex-Governor of California, the Honorable Hiram John- 
son, a strong gallant spirited character of demonstrated 
merit and ability as public administrator. Full of honor 
and virtue was he loyal to the interest of the State that 
he served. Endowed with seldom gifts of finesse and 
excellence, is he expected to perform great things. It is 
my conviction, and as such my hope, that in due course 
of time their good angel will lead the American people 
to call an him to do what duty and necessity urgently 
demand to be done in the interest of the whole nation, by 
removing the present unrest and dissatisfaction among 
the people in the United States, threatening to lead both 
into chaos, and make the inhabitants tranquil and happy. 

It is emphatically the province and the duty of Con- 
gress to say what the law is, no other legislative body is 
entitled thereto. The policy of the Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, John Marshall, of 
making the Supreme Court a supreme dictator was un- 
constitutional and therefore an illegitimate act. The 
history of the United States Supreme Court by Gustavus 
Meyer, taken from the records "of this high and au- 



74 HIGH TREASON 

gust judges" shows what they have done with their 
usurped power. It manifests a systematical continued 
departure from loyalty to public trust. In the face of 
those statements it is> the duty of the people of the United 
States to conquer the members of Congress by l i Recall, ' ' 
if they neglect their duty to curb the dictatorial power of 
the United States Supreme Court. Either the Congress 
does not appoint another Supreme Judge when one has 
died and does so till the last Judge is dead, or the Con- 
gress adds to every law that it makes the provision that 
it not shall be under the jurisdiction of the Supreme 
Court, by this automatically setting the members of this 
Court on the pension list. 

In the first case the existence of the Supreme Court 
is provided for by the Constitution, but the number of 
its members is to be determined by Congress. In the 
second case the Supreme Court or any court of the land 
has nothing to do with the wisdom or policy of any act 
of Congress. The late Justice Harlan, in his dissenting 
opinion in the Standard Oil case has acknowledged and 
proclaimed the intangible superiority of Congress over 
any court in the United States. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 75 

Fatherland ! Embrace the dear one, hold it fast, and 
tightly grasp the same with whole-souled emphasis. — 

Schiller. 

VII. 

THE RELATION OF SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUAL 
TO ONE ANOTHER. 

Society is under bonds to defend us all, in defending 
itself, and I am a party to that contract, but when it 
crosses my meadow or hurts my business, takes away 
my property, enslaves my personal liberty, without hav- 
ing forfeited them by a crime, society must settle with 
me for the damage done me; not to do so is anarchy, 
false communism, outrage and crime. These rights I 
have named, rights of personal liberty and property are 
not only inalienable but very sacred rights, and somehow 
or other, sometime or other, the infringement of those 
rights will be avenged on the evildoer. 

Rights imply duties, and duties imply rights. Society 
in absorbing the individual becomes responsible for his 
support, while the individual in being absorbed becomes 
entitled to be supported. According to this, the right 
of society to absorb implies the duty to support, while 
the duty of the individual, to be absorbed, implies the 
right to be supported. This sounds both humane and 
logical, but premises and conclusion are equally false. 

Nature is bountiful; she has made ample provision 
for us all; there is space enough for each one of us, 
and birth into this world entitles one to the space neces- 
sary to make a living, i. e., to support his life. But 
society has no right to absorb the individual, and con- 
sequently it is under no obligation to support him as 
long as the individual is able to support himself, while 



76 HIGH TREASON 

the imd/ividual has no business to be absorbed and 
no right to be supported. Accordingly, society has 
entered into no contract to support anybody who is able 
to support himself, any more than Providence has 
entered into such a contract in calling the individual 
into life. What society does in supporting the indi- 
vidual, unable to do it himself, is no obligation, but good 
will to man!! Nature does not care for the individual at 
all. Her iron law is : the survival of the fittest, the main- 
tenance, the preservation and the evolution of the race. 
In this respect the creatures' curses or prayers are all 
in vain. They are unheard by their Creator. 

For instance, I individually have a right to personal 
liberty by being born, to be able to support my life. 
Therefore society has no right to enslave me by confine- 
ment in a madhouse, as a sane man, physically able to 
work, without appraisal and indemnity. Society, set- 
ting forth falsely its compassion and love with the 
gracious purpose to punish me for the upholding of 
guaranteed rights, guiding the rod of its anger by the 
arm of mercy, is not only grossest hypocrisy, but a cardi- 
nal crime. I personally have experienced its merciful 
blessings and its protection fifty months. It powerfully 
tended to destroy my health, my life and all hope, admin- 
istering despair, not consolation. The effect of my long 
confinement in a madhouse, with the treatment I received 
there, the picture, taken ten days after my release, 
demonstrates. Reparation for the wrong done to me 
must be made by the payment of indemnity in accord- 
ance with the enormity of the crime. I expect that the 
citizens of the state will readily and promptly accede 
to my demand. I base this expectation on the belief 
that the people will not and cannot sanction or defend an 
act that is condemned by all civilized nations as diabol- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 77 

ical, inhuman and barbarous, and which to men of intel- 
ligence is abhorrent. The agony of mind that I endured 
long did plow my features with impressions strong. On 
the other hand, no man who is able to work, that is, not 
maimed, has any right to receive a lifelong pension from 
society for having done his bounden duty to defend him- 
self in the upholding of society by offering his life, fight- 
ing for its duration. That means, to give up his life, his 
scant or great earnings, in the defense of the fatherland, 
when an armed conflict comes, by the demands of love 
for his country, called patriotism. A patriotism thus 
rewarded by the American Society in having paid Four 
and a Half Billion Dollars to the present time to the 
survivors of the men fighting our wars, means nothing 
but a lowering of what the high idea ' ' Patriotism ' ' 
really stands for. It takes away its honor, making it 
commercial in estimating its value by dollars, a most 
dangerous thing. So it comes that the hundredth man 
on the street fully able to work receives a lifelong pen- 
sion from the American people, God only knows for what 
service to the nation, with the effect that if society would 
stop paying these pensions American patriotism would 
die at the same moment. There you are ! ! 

The low moral value of this pension system is fully 
recognized by politicians as a means to secure a stock 
of votes to the party in power. There is not such a 
thing as a non-partisan being, and if there is one, he is 
out of place on this earth. At the end of the Taft admin- 
istration an increase of the pension bill was whipped 
thru both houses in the amount of Thirty-Five Million 
Dollars for no other purpose but to acquire with it votes 
enough to save the situation, i. e., the re-election of Taft 
as Republican President. The purpose failed to elect 
Taft. Theodore Roosevelt gained the confidence of the 



78 HIGH TREASON 

people, and should have righteously become President. 
Why and how the will of the people was annulled has 
been explained — and we cheerfully shall pay these 
Thirty-Five Million Dollars annually for more pensions, 
most likely for a hundred years to come. 

As Immanuel Kant taught the gospel of duty as a 
categorical imperative, so the Prussian General Scharn- 
horst, the prudent and tacit man of the hour, after the 
battle of Jena, 1806, grasped the idea of the sacred duty 
of a citizen to defend the soil upon which his home 
stands, as a categorical imperative — and militarism was 
born! If my readers have any aversion to the word 
militarism, they may say " patriotism, " and they will 
touch the matter with the needle — the duty of every man 
physically able to defend his fatherland, if need be. If 
some people call this duty despotism, they have no idea 
what the word patriotism stands for. For this purpose 
to be zealous and efficient, he must receive a training in 
military service out of public means. In undergoing 
this training he must be conscious of performing an 
honored duty, not a service. The idea that a man de- 
fends the country from his will to do it or not, thus 
becoming a soldier by profession, is fit for slaves to 
harbor; there are other things to be considered as far 
as that idea goes — a nation must be judged by its 
history. 

For what shall our soldiers fight? For the honor 
and dignity of the nation, of course! What does the 
word bravery stand for? The will to risk his life for a 
conviction, be it spiritual or material, with a full knowl- 
edge of the value of his life. Wilfully to put his life 
in jeopardy* not knowing its value, and losing it, repre- 
sents no loss — where no value is, there is no loss! In 
the sixteen addresses to persons named at the close* 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 79 

of these articles the proof is given how the legal pro- 
fession and the Protestant church association in the 
small town of Sherman alone, violate our constitution 
and plunder the people. Every man in the United 
States knows that the rich in nine hundred and ninety- 
nine cases out of a thousand put themselves above the 
law for greed without any prosecution. Do these condi- 
tions represent our honor and dignity? To uphold this 
kind of honor and dignity in maintaining the status quo 
ante one hundred and forty years old, it is not worth 
risking the life of one mother's son, conscious that its 
destruction is one for an eternity. What about the mal- 
administration of charity in the North Texas Hospital 
at Terrell? Sick, defenseless, harmless men are choked 
to death like dogs, drowned like cats, beaten to death 
like snakes and their bowels bursted by stamping the 
abdomen with a bestiality that is below the sensuality of 
savages. Is that the humanity which Woodrow Wilson 
recommends the students of Harvard University to fight 
for ? He said, ' ' The idea of America is to serve human- 
ity, and every time you let the stars and stripes free to 
the wind you ought to realize that you are not on an 
errand of conquest, but on an errand of service. You 
are far from the moral compulsion of the human con- 
science. You must hear in mind that you are champions 
of what is right and fair all around for the puolic wel- 
fare, no matter where you are, and that you are ready 
to fight for that and not merely on the drop of a hat 
or upon some slight punctiUio. The idea is to serve 
humanity, and the stars and stripes are nothing more 
than a piece of cloth or paper when they are not the 
symhol that a whole nation is ever ready to protect. 

To solve the problem of the defense of the nation 
conscientiously, I recommend my fellow-citizens to think 



80 HIGH TREASON 

it over, to smoke it over and to drink it over, to come 
to the conclusion that its only solution is a categorical 
imperative of duty for every able man to defend it, the 
most glorious idea of the equality of man, the only 
expectancy, the only hope that realizes in action that 
the essence of the Declaration of Independence ever 
comes true — without it the expectation to become a re- 
spectable and respected nation will prove an absolute 
failure. One year of uninterrupted service in the army 
for every able-bodied man is what I consider highly 
recommendable, and not only three hours', but fully 
eight hours' strenuous corporal exercise during the day, 
is the key to our independence. There is no sacrifice to 
the country on the part of a young man in the perform- 
ance of that honored duty, but an enormous gain to 
himself by the exploitation of his corporal expertness 
and alertness by three hundred days ' exercise. It means 
a gain for our national life so great in every direction 
that its value cannot be exaggerated or estimated in 
dollars. 

As a man can develop his brains by study, by recep- 
tive observation and by assiduous practice of thinking, 
after the same law, he can develop by constant exercise 
every muscle of his body, creating not only great phys- 
ical strength, but the right way to use it in emergency. 
The physical, mental and spiritual parts of our nature 
are so closely associated and interwoven that in obeying 
and developing the physical life, we not only gain bodily 
vigor, but mental and spiritual strength also, a primal 
law of development. 

These eight hours daily of strenuous bodily exercise 
should be followed by four hours of instruction in mili- 
tary science, varied by national games. Spartan laws 
of discipline must prevail during the twenty-four hours 



"AGAINST OUK CONSTITUTION 81 

of the day. The military officers should not allow that 
their soldiers outside of the camp should misbehave like 
cowboys turned loose of the once wild west, for it would 
be a disgrace to the nation and a grave sorrow for a 
reflective citizen. A decent man among them must feel 
ashamed to wear the same public uniform that his com- 
rade dishonors by such disgraceful deportment. Not 
Theodore Roosevelt's two sons of one family, but the 
spirit and the virtue of these two sons, that is what 
makes the American nation invincible. 

"Have you an idea of the moral effect of the parade 
step when those Germans bring those strong feet down, 
bing ! bang ! so that the earth vibrates ? It stands for the 
idea of determination! It is the whole German idea 
and nothing can stop it! Did you ever see a German 
soldier greet his superior ? There is nothing servile about 
that. He squares off and brings his hand to his head 
and looks the officer square in the eyes, as if to say: 
1 Now, d — n you, salute me ! ' — and he gets his salutation 
like a man all right." I read that sentence once — 
where, I do not know. The man who said that observed 
sharply, he fully grasped the idea, and I stored his wis- 
dom away into my cortex. When I saw a few days ago 
an American soldier greeting his superior, / Mushed 
over the servility of that simple act. 

This national force must be created only and solely 
for the purpose of defense, should the nation be attacked 
unjustly by another nation. Their oath of allegiance 
to our flag must be formed to exclude any military serv- 
ice that tends to hinder the people in their constitutional 
right to remove the wrong in holding up the right, even 
in cases of violence. When each citizen has been made 
a trained soldier, there would be no chance for an army 
to control the people "in the time of trouble and unrest" 



82 HIGH TREASON 

by running over those who pay for the maintenance of 
the army. 

President Wilson sent the following telegram, because 
of an assembly of foreign-born citizens, Germans, who 
celebrated the German day, if I am not mistaken : ' ' The 
American nation needs a trained reserve force under 
the authority of the federal government to be able to 
control the country in time of unrest and trouble." 
May I not express my very deep and sincere confidence 
in the great body of our fellow citizens who have 
strengthened and enriched America by adding their 
energy to our own of the nations which have joined 
stocks to make a great America?" In this message 
Woodrow "Wilson was untrue to our constitution, and 
the Supreme Court of the United States neglected its 
duty to veto the law that created a larger military force 
for the purpose of being able to control the country in 
time of unrest and trouble. 

President Woodrow Wilson should remove the cause 
of trouble and unrest in our country, thus upholding our 
rights, instead of recommending the quenching of justi- 
fied unrest by the violation of those rights through mili- 
tary force. A democratic administration must be dis- 
tinctly democratic or it cannot succeed. Two wrongs 
do not make one right! 

The conception of right is two-fold ; firstly, it signifies 
the consciousness of the right, the intuitive belief of 
what is right and good. Every man is conscious of it 
and feels a sense of obligation which is independent 
of all external revelation. Intuition tells me that its 
rule is within me and would be there, though no positive 
or external revelation of duty existed. In other words, 
we do not refer the sense of moral obligation to an 
externally revealed law as its source, but to the consti- 



'AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 83 

tution of our nature. This is not the experience of any 
class of men exclusively, but the common experience of 
the human race. Wherever there are men, there is the 
sense of moral obligation and the knowledge of right 
and wrong. Man would not differ on questions of moral- 
ity unless the sense of right and wrong was innate and 
universal. As there are certain truths of the reason 
which are intuitive and perceived by all men, so there 
are moral truths so simple that they are universally 
recognized. Their meaning is an indefinite, purely per- 
sonal conception! 

Secondly: The rights laid down by society and the 
state, either written or sanctioned by tradition. Their 
meaning is variable and capable of development. The 
right determined by law is only an attempt to secure a 
right in itself. The application of these legal rights must 
be and always will be qualified and varied in order to 
correspond as much as possible to the idea of justice, 
as the human race proceeds in its evolution, in its forms 
of responsibility, social service, social approval and co- 
operation. The inevitable process of life is a process of 
adjustment. Things do not stand still. If things cannot 
stand still law cannot stand still. Advancement and 
improvement of society in the sense of patriotic respon- 
sibility is fundamental. 

President Wilson seems to me not to have studied with 
zealous endeavor the history of Germany, for if he had, 
he would not draw the false conclusion that the German 
militarism (please read patriotism) will ever be used to 
herd the Germans, the most liberty-loving people on 
earth, much less to stampede them. No Hohenzollern 
will ever try such a dangerous experiment ; but to trans- 
fer these false conclusions of the German patriotism 
(read militarism) to the United States of America for 



84 HIGH TREASON 

the purpose by military force to control the country in 
time of unrest and trouble, is criminal neglect of his 
reasoning faculty. Exercising his own judgment, con- 
trary to certain fixed limitations, Woodrow Wilson 
became a traitor to our constitution instead of the pre- 
server of the people's law, the only law they have 
enacted. Only the people can change it, it cannot be 
broken by their president without committing down- 
right anarchy on his part. In his St. Louis address 
Woodrow Wilson, because of our enormous stretch of 
coast from the Canal of Panama to Alaska in the west, 
and from the Panama Canal to the northern coast of 
Maine in the east, recommended to build a navy incom- 
parably the greatest in the world! If a fool talks such 
nonsense, one gives him in his thoughts an alms; but if 
our president, at whose disposal are hundreds of able 
brains to instruct him in naval affairs, makes such pub- 
lic utterances, this is not only a lamentable but a most 
serious error very well adapted to make enemies of 
nations to whom the safety of the seas is quite as impor- 
tant as it is to us; because it cannot have any other 
meaning, but the expression of a national naval policy 
that threatens others. By his careful study of English 
history, he and our Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, 
obviously drew the deduction from arguments and 
assertions that as all Georges who have ever ruled 
England were a great misfortune to that country, George 
the Fifth, the present ruler, must be the exception that 
proves the rule. Who lives will see if their deduction is 
right, or if name is sign. 

For the German mind the State is only the means 
to the end. The end is the welfare of the individual. 
The Germans do not blindly love their king and emperor, 
William the Second, because he is a Hohenzollern and 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 85 

their ruler, but because their ruler is William, the 
Superb, by his wisdow and prudence as ruler. No mon- 
arch on earth has ever studied the soul of his people as 
William the Second did, and when he had perceived what 
that soul wanted and urgently needed, he became its 
zealous and efficient leader. For this capability his 
people admire him, but as William the Superb, in his 
exalted position, is a good man, majestic but not fierce, 
he is the great man that he is, and therefore his Germans 
love him, and love him heartily, with unlimited confi- 
dence in the faithful performance of his duty, for which 
he is conscious as no other man on earth, of being respon- 
sible to his nation, to the world, and to his God ! 

I confess that I love Germany, the land that has 
born and raised me, and I shall love it to my last 
breath. Man hardly has a richer possession than honest 
birth. It is not only the duty of a son to love his mother, 
but his greatest honor. To be loyal to his stepmother 
gives proof that he possesses a noble mind. The German 
idea is that a man has never finished, that he should 
continue growing and developing all the time. With 
the Germans the acquiring of learning day by day and 
to put solid learning into practice during life is a passion, 
because there is always in the German mind the thought 
of the future and in his heart always a feeling for the 
common welfare. The German "Idea of State" demands 
from the individual the highest amount of sacrifice in 
favor of the whole nation; courage is self-evident, per- 
sistency the necessity, based upon a noble enthusiasm. 
There are not two nations on the surface of the earth 
which could learn so much from one another as the 
people of the United States and the people of Germany ; 
as there are not two nations which at present know so 
little of their innermost being as just those two. The 



86 HIGH TREASON 

bodies of the two nations touch each other by the Atlantic 
Ocean, their connection link, bnt the souls of those two 
nations have not found one another yet. It is virtuous 
manners which constitute the excellence of the neigh- 
borhood! 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 87 



VIII. 

If my principles are to advance, it is so ordered; if 
they are to fall to the ground, it is so ordered ; what can 
a man do where such ordering is concerned? — Confucius. 

Above the rivalry of the individuals and groups within 
the states stands the law, which shall take care that 
injustice is diminished and right prevails. Behind the 
law stands the state, armed with power to protect and 
actively to promote the moral and spiritual interests of 
society. But the state shall not be merely a legal and 
social insurance office; its nobler task is to raise to the 
highest expansion the intellectual and moral powers of a 
nation for the purpose to secure for it that influence on 
the world which tends to the combined progress of human- 
ity. The political union called the United States means 
nothing if it has not the one object of bringing the advan- 
tages of civilization within the reach of the individual. 
Man can only deevlop his highest capacities when he 
takes his part in a community, a social organism, for 
which he lives and works. The family, the society, the 
state draws the individual out of the narrow circle in 
which he otherwise would pass his life, to make him a 
co-worker in the great common interests of humanity, 
willingly devoting his own existence to the good cause 
he serves. 

The individual must have ideals that he values. By 
pledging his life to his convictions he alone gains con- 
ception of personal morality. Otherwise money and 
possession acquire an excessive and unjustifiable power 
in the State and character does not obtain due respect. 



88 HIGH TREASON 

The individual is responsible only for himself; if either 
from weakness, or from moral reasons he neglects his 
own advantage, he only injures himself ; the consequences 
of his actions recoil only on him. The situation is quite 
different in the case of a state. The state represents 
the interests of a large community that differ and often 
conflict. Should the state from any reason neglect the 
interest confided to it, it would not only damage itself 
as a legal personality, but would injure the body of pri- 
vate interests which it represents. The detriment that it 
causes must be far-reaching, because it affects not merely 
one individual responsible only to himself, but a mass 
of individuals called the community. From this point 
of view it is the moral duty of the state to be absolutely 
loyal to its own peculiar functions, that means, to be 
the faithful guardian and the far-seeing promoter of all 
higher interests., 

To be able to fulfill this duty, the State must have 
the needful power. To secure, to increase this needful 
power, dutifully to carry out its task, must be not only 
its first and foremost object, but its duty. Among all 
political sins a state can commit, the sin of feebleness and 
incapability is the most contemptible, because it is the sin 
against its very existence. The power of the State does 
not rest exclusively on the factors that make up material 
power, territory, population, wealth, army and navy; 
it rests to the foremost degree on moral elements which 
are reciprocally related to the material power. The 
energy with which a state promotes its own interests 
represents and protects the rights of its citizens, the 
determination which it displays to inspect and rigorously 
to supervise its organs, constitutes the real factor of its 
strength. A state form which allows that its govern- 
mental organs employ deceitful methods, pursuing im- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 89 

moral and frivolous aims which bear comparison with 
the seriousness of a capital crime, inevitably must sink 
into deserved disrepute. A state form that does not stake 
its whole power on upholding its independence, its honor 
and its reputation within, does not only renounce its 
highest ideals and dishonor itself, but has no right to 
demand to be honored, has no right to claim a moral 
prestige from the outside world. 

The crucial question is, how far has the government 
of the United States performed its duty and thus served 
the interests of the nation ? Can the government of the 
United States further tolerate quietly, as it has done 
for the past one hundred and forty years, the dangerous 
agitation of the legal profession and the Protestant 
church, an absolute, anti-constitutional, foul combina- 
tion ? When will it hinder by every means possible the 
efforts of this combination to effect their purpose to rule 
the land ? Shall the belief further prevail that the Gov- 
ernment of the United States has licensed the commer- 
cial marauder and legalized the personal oppressor? 

Three presidents of the United States, Roosevelt, Taft, 
Wilson, each a representative of his party, have declared 
with deep regret, and so did our Ambassador Andrew 
White, an experienced first-rank statesman, that the 
greatest wrong done the country was through the mis- 
representation of the law by the court and the legal\ 
profession. Not one of these statesmen had the courage 
to let out of the sack and set free, and to lead us to hunt 
the two big snakes that infest the country and keep 
back its people from a healthful, decent evolution of 
the nation. One of these snakes is a python, a genus 
of ophidian reptiles (that means smaller in size). 
Nearly allied to the boa is the python, the most deadly 
venomous serpent on the globe. It represents the rot- 



90 HIGH TREASON 

tenness of our judiciary and legislatures. The other 
snake is a boa constrictor. Slowly but surely crushing 
its prey to death in its coils, it is a large and all-powerful 
serpent, a monster, covering with its length the land 
from Corpus Christi to San Francisco. And the trail 
of the serpent is over us all ! ! It represents the false- 
hood of the Church in her insatiable lust for influence 
and power in politics. For the failure of our central 
government, for all the maladministration and corrup- 
tion in the states of the Union, the powerful visible gov- 
ernment of the legal profession and the all-powerful 
invisible government over the legal profession, the 
church, are alone and solely responsible. They are guilty 
of high treason against our constitution, openly, shame- 
lessly tyrannize the land, and in their fold combination 
poison the whole country. 

As those four named excellent men, when in power, 
could not find the remedy radically to cure the deplor- 
able, shameful condition under which a hundred million 
people suffer, the duty of the citizen is to awaken to 
modern things and to become aware that his personal 
happiness, his material welfare and his future destiny 
are dependent upon the thoughts that govern him; for 
thought is the governing force — the thought that the 
author of the law shall not any more be the victim of a 
false execution of the law by traitors to that law. Re- 
sponsibility of the individual, sense of citizenship and 
manly efficiency, characteristics that are best called social 
instincts, alone can make a government for and by the 
people successful to fulfill the miracle of Kanaan, that 
the guests of the United States may enjoy first the 
inferior wine, then the better one, and finally the most 
delicious one that nature gives. A widened horizon, 
much good will, political thinking and an elevated self- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 91 

respect are the key to "The Ordinances of Heaven." 
Good relation between men rests only and solely upon 
their respect for law and humanity, otherwise they are 
illegal and indefensible ! ! 

When an ostrich at the approach of danger buries 
his head into the sand, no thinking man can blame him ; 
he is a timid, stupid bird, but we are reasoning beings, 
the proud sons of the land of the free and the home of 
the brave. To save our own head we must squarely look 
into that which is inevitably coming, the downfall of the 
United States, if we are able to draw from real facts the 
right conclusion. That the same cause which destroyed 
the mighty Roman world empire should have a preserv- 
ing effect on the United States, is not to assume, at least 
not logically, unless the just, august and awe-inspiring 
tribunal of the world has become the same rotten 
business as our own judiciary — an impossibility. We 
had better conceive that it is not the revolution that 
destroys the machinery, but the friction. To remove the 
friction in our political machine must be our task before 
the machinery is totally out of date and we are compelled 
to cast it to the junk pile in calling it a miserable failure. 

The Central Government of the United States, founded 
on justice and equal rights, has been false to the people 
from the beginning, and will be further untrue to them 
if it slavishly permits the state of injustice and outrage 
to continue under which the whole nation suffers. Should 
the United States not use to advantage the wisdom of 
Confucius, given two thousand four hundred and fifty 
years before our time, how is it to make our republic 
tranquil and happy? 

Confucius, the latinized transliteration of Kong Fu- 
Tse, means "Kong, the Master." A Chinese ethical 
philosopher, he was born in 549 and died in 479 B. C. 



92 HIGH TREASON 

The teaching of Confucius is a system not of religion, 
but of individual, social and political ethics, that is, the 
science of human duty. Five centuries before the ap- 
pearance of Christ upon earth, Confucius gave utterance 
to the precise thought of the Golden Rule. Having been 
asked by one of his disciples, "Is there not one word 
which may serve as a rule of practice for all of one's 
life?" Confucius replied, "Is not reciprocity such a 
word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not 
do to others." The deep truth that lies in this central 
doctrine of Confucius, giving the negative formula in 
his individual testimony, is not only a rule of practice 
for all of one's life, it is a principle, as the soul of man 
is an active principle, and therefore is a primordial sub- 
stance, a fountain of life, consistently directing one's 
actions. There is nowhere any clear indication that Con- 
fucius recognized the existence of a Supreme Being. By 
his "Ordinances of Heaven" he means the "Ordinances 
of Nature." There is not anywhere the slightest refer- 
ence to a future state of reward and punishment or, 
indeed, to any future life at all. His philosophy, handed 
down, relates wholly to the life we now live, involun- 
tarily making the impression on a reflecting mind that 
the evolution of the human race during the past two 
thousand four hundred and fifty years, as far as morals 
are concerned, has not been very progressive, in spite 
of their persistent teaching by religious sects. 

At twenty-six years of age, Confucius became known 
as a reformer of morals. He founded a school in which 
he taught morals, rhetoric, politics and the perfection 
of the style of writing. He died in the seventieth year 
of his age. During his life he was persecuted, prosecuted, 
imprisoned and severely punished. Once he was con- 
demned to death by starvation, and saved only from this 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 93 

fate by his disciples. Soon after his death his country- 
men began to show tokens of explicit veneration to his 
memory. His family has continued to the present time, 
the only hereditary aristocracy in the Chinese Empire. 
One of his principles was "Learning enters into vir- 
tue," that illustrious virtue that attains a calm imper- 
turbedness, succeeded by a tranquil repose. To make 
this virtue a common possession, he recommended: 
"Well to order the State. To order well the state, first 
to regulate its families ; to acquire this, to first cultivate 
their person. To acquire this to rectify their hearts by 
teaching them sincere thoughts. To be sincere in their 
thoughts they should extend to the utmost their knowl- 
edge by a careful investigation of the things." Con- 
fucius concluded: Things being investigated, knowl- 
edge became complete (for the time being) ; man's knowl- 
edge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their 
thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. 
Their hearts being rectified, their persons were culti- 
vated ; their persons being cultivated, their families were 
regulated; their families being regulated, their states 
were rightly governed. Their states being rightly gov- 
erned, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy. 
The words fatherhouse and mothertongue signify the 
real positions which belong to father and mother of 
right in life. Confucius recognized that the family is 
the place of happiness, of influence, of rest, of strength ; 
a place of pleasure, it is a school where great lessons are 
taught, fundamental principles are learned, sincerity 
and veracity are worshipped. It is the cradle of man- 
kind to perpetuate the race and to solve the problems 
that lead to a happy life; in it faithfulness shall reign 
on the part of husband and wife and gratitude on the 
part of the children. From the president down to the 



94 HIGH TREASON 

mass of the people all must consider the cultivation of 
the person, the root of everything besides. It has never 
been the case, nor will it ever be, that what was of 
great importance has been slightly cared for, and that 
what was of slight importance has been greatly cared 
for. 

Another teaching of Confucius was "The Law of 
Mind" is "Solid learning carried into practice during 
life." ''What is conferred to Heaven" is called the 
" Ordinances of Nature." An accordance with this 
Nature is called ''Path of Duty." The regulation of 
this path is called ' ' Instruction. ' ' He says : ' ' There is 
nothing more visible than what is secret, and nothing 
more manifest than what is minute. Therefore , the 
superior man is watchful over himself when he is alone. ' ' 
This leads to a state of mind expressed as equilibrium, 
that is, an equal balancing of the mind between motives 
or reasons, securing what may be called harmony. The 
Master says, "From harmony, this great root, grows 
all human actings in the world. This harmony is the 
universal path which all men should pursue. Acquired 
in perfection, a happy order will prevail throughout 
earth and all things will be nourished and flourish." 
This harmonious mental state of Confucius is due to the 
fundamental law or principle that agreeable conception 
favorably influence our wellbeing and most likely, there- 
fore, prolong life ; while destructive conceptions are det- 
rimental to health and shorten life; in other words, 
it is moods that kill. Our morbid states of mind have 
the effect of true poisons upon the body. Each having 
a pathological history of its own. From this it follows 
that the morally good emotions are more healthful than 
the contrary ones. Selfishness, cruelty, jealousy, rage 
are slow poisons to the blood. All that produce happi- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 95 

ness are cordials — the mind is the fountain of wailing or 
song, and man is the judge of the measure ! 

From the Analects, which may be properly designated 
as the table talks of Confucius, translated by Dr. Legge, 
I shall present a few of the most striking passages fitting 
for our time. "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first 
principles, and when you have faults do not fear to 
abandon them. Have no depraved thoughts. If the 
people be led by laws in uniformity, sought to be given 
them for punishment, they will try to avoid the punish- 
ment, but have no sense of shame. The superior man 
acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according 
to his action. He is catholic and not partisan; the 
mean man is partisan and not catholic, i. e., liberal and 
pure in thoughts. It is only the truly virtuous man whtf 
can love and hate others. A man whose mind is set on 
truths and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food 
is not fit to be discussed with. The superior man thinks 
of virtue, the small man of comfort. The superior man 
thinks of the sanctions of law, the small man thinks of 
the favors he may receive by it. Riches and honor are 
what man desires; if they cannot be obtained in the 
proper way they should not be held. Poverty and mean- 
ness are what man dislikes; if they cannot be avoided 
in the proper way, they should not be avoided. Those who 
are without virtue cannot abide long in a condition of 
poverty and hardship. ' ' Confucius was asked about his 
wishes and he said: "They are, in regard to the aged, 
to give them rest; in regard to friends, to show them 
sincerity; in regard to the young, to treat them most 
tenderly. ' ' Confucius was asked : What is wisdom ? The 
master said : " To give one 's self earnestly to the duties 
due to man, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to 
keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom." The 



96 HIGH TREASON 

master said: " Where the solid qualities are in excess of 
accomplishments, we have rusticity; when the accom- 
plishments are in excess of the solid qualities we have 
the manners of a clerk; when the accomplishments and 
the solid qualities are equally blended, we then have the 
man of complete virtue. The man of virtue makes the 
difficulties to be overcome his first business, and success 
only a subsequent consideration ; this may be called per- 
fect virtue. They who know the truth are not equal to 
those who love it ; and they who love it are not equal to 
those who find real pleasure in it. An associate must 
be a man who proceeds to action full of solicitude, who 
is fond of adjusting his plans and then carries them into 
execution." 

The Lord of She asked Tsze-Loo about Confucius. 
Tsze-Loo did not answer him, afraid that his answer 
might displease his lordship. The Master said: " Why 
did you not say to him, he is simply a man who in his 
eager pursuit for knowledge forgets his food, who in the 
joy of its attainment forgets his sorrow, and who does 
not perceive that old age is coming on?" Asked about 
serving the spirits of the dead, the master said : * ' While 
you are not able to serve man, how can you serve their 
spirits ?" Ka-Loo asked him about death; the master 
said, " While you do not know life, how can you know 
death ?" Asked about friendship, the master said: 
"Faithfully admonish your friend and kindly try to 
lead him. If you find him impracticable, stop ; do not 
disgrace yourself. " The master was asked by the Prince 
of Wei: " What is necessary to rectify the name of 
things?" The master replied: "If the names are not 
correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of 
things ; if language is not in accordance with the truth 
of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. There- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 97 

fore a superior man considers it necessary that the words 
he uses may be spoken appropriately and also that what 
he speaks may be carried out appropriately, what the 
superior man requires is that in his words there may be 
nothing incorrect." Tsze-Tung asked: " What do you 
say of a man who is loved by all the people of his vil- 
lage ? ' ' The Master said : * * We may not accord our 
approval of him for that." And, "What do you say of 
him who is hated by all the people of his village ? ' ' The 
Master said : ' ' We may not conclude that he is bad for 
that ; it is better than either of these cases that the good 
in the village love him and the bad hate him. ,, Someone 
asked Confucius : ' ' What do you say of the principle 
that injury should be recompensed with kindness? " The 
Master said : ' ' With what will you then recompense kind- 
ness? Recompense injury with justice and recompense 
kindness with kindness. ' ' The Master said : ' ' There are 
three things which the superior man guards against; 
in youth, when the physical powers are not yet settled, 
he guards against lust ; when he is strong and his phys- 
ical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrel- 
someness; when he is old and the animal powers are 
decayed, he guards against covetousness. ' ' The Master 
said : ' ' There are three things of which the superior man 
stands in awe; he stands in awe of the l Ordinance of 
Heaven* (Nature) ; he stands in awe of great men; he 
stands in awe of the words of sages. The mean man does 
not know the ordinances of nature and consequently 
does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to 
great man. He makes sport of the words of sages. Those 
who are born with the possession of knowledge are the 
highest class of men; those who learn and so readily 
get possession of knowledge are the next. Those who 
are dull and stupid and yet compass learning are an- 



98 HIGH TREASON 

other class next to these. As to those who are dull and 
stupid and yet do not learn, they are the lowest of the 
people.' ' Asked about his own personal conduct, the 
Master said : ' ' Of all people, girls and servants are the 
most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with 
them, they lose their humility ; if you maintain a reserve 
towards them, they are discontented. ' ' The Master said : 
"Without recognizing the ordinances of nature it is im- 
possible to be a superior man. Without an acquaintance 
with the rules of propriety it is impossible for the char- 
acter to be established. Without knowing words it is 
impossible to know man. There are three principles of 
conduct which the man of higher rank should consider 
especially important : that in his deportment and manner 
he keeps from violence and heedlessness; that in regu- 
lating his countenance he keeps close to sincerity; that 
in his words and tone he keeps far from lowness and 
impropriety." 

Heen asked him: How to rule a land? The Master 
said : " To rule a country there must be a reverent atten- 
tion to business and sincerity, economy in expenditure, 
and love for man. He who exercises government by 
means of his virtue may be compared with the North 
Polar Star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn 
toward him." When Tsze-Kung asked about good gov- 
ernment, the Master said: " When a country is well 
governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to 
be ashamed of; when a country is ill-governed, riches 
and honor are things to be ashamed of. When good 
government prevails in a state and public officers are 
thinking only of their salary, this is shameful; and when 
bad government prevails, to be thinking only of one's sal- 
ary, this is most shameful. The requisites of good govern- 
ment are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 99 

military equipment, and confidence of the people in their 
rulers." Tsze-Kung asked: " If it cannot be helped, 
Master, and one of these must be dispensed with, which 
of the three should be given up first ?" "The military 
equipment," said the Master. Tsze-Kung again asked, 
"If it cannot be helped, and one of the remaining two 
must be dispensed with, which of them should be given 
up ? " The Master answered : ' ' Part with the food. From 
of old, death has been the lot of man, but if the people 
have no faith in their ruler there is no standing for that 
stater' 

I am an American citizen, and as such, according to 
my oath of national allegiance, I offer my hand, my heart, 
my fortune and, if necessary, my life to the upholding 
of popular government and what it stands for, as laid 
down in our constitution. My sincerity of purpose gives 
guarantee that every word I have written is backed by 
facts; to strengthen the spring of American patriotism 
and to awaken the moral sense of responsibilitiy of my 
fellow citizens. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



100 HIGH TREASON 

To serve me well you all should do me duty, teach 
me to be your queen and you my subjects. 

— Shakespeare. 



ADDRESS TO THE GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGAL 
PROFESSION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Gentlemen : 

I know good men who tactily suffer private wrongs 
by reason of the falsity of the execution of our Consti- 
tution, a noble courage, that I define as a courage without 
nobility. A heroic soul does not sell its justice and its 
nobleness ; but being mute in the face of systematized af- 
front to our constitution by the legal profession and the 
church, a most foul association, a stock company for 
shamelessly plundering the people by the crime of high 
treason against our constitution — they are asses, who are 
not lions! It is an ill thing to admit and to be ashamed 
of our poverty caused by the fraudulent retainment of 
our riches, the legal inheritance of our forefathers, by 
the legal profession and the Protestant church; but it 
is much worse, visibly depriving us of all spirit and vir- 
tue, not to make use of lawful means to prosecute the 
robbers thereby exposing them and bringing them to jus- 
tice. Death is short, life is long, and Satan is strong — 
let us go while we live and fight his Satanic Majesty him- 
self in raising hell ! From labor health, from health con- 
tentment springs. Don't waste your precious time by 
hesitation and timidity. There is no other way unto 
life and true inward peace in the United States, but to 
hold up our constitutions by strictly demanding their 
blessings, systematically and fraudulently denied us by 
a million lawless lawyers and preachers. That our bar is 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 101 

not the pride of the American people, the poorest man in 
the gutter knows ; because the low character of the most 
oppressive lawyers is bringing disrepute to the entire 
legal profession. If the government does not perform its 
function properly, to administer justice as provided in 
our constitution, the people shall have the right to alter it 
by removing the wrong and holding up the right, as 
our constitution reads. A nation cannot be born until a 
country has endured woes. No adversity is without com- 
forts and hope, but remember that no man loses any 
other life than this which he now lives. Make use of 
your time, it is still flying. 

It is a strange thing that the lawyers of this land, sup- 
posed to be highly educated and therefore well ac- 
quainted with the diiference of the meaning of the words 
of creed and faith, dogma and religion, agnosticism and 
positivism, mysticism and clear thought, are so pro- 
foundly pious, and thus become leading church members. 
It makes the impression on the reflective observer that 
behind every judgeship stands the dark, dominating fig- 
ure of the church as a glaring illustration of the partner- 
ship politics of church and bar, ever ready to combine 
action for selfish aims, after the do ut des principle, that 
is: "you help me, and I'll help you." So it comes about 
that the distrust of the court, and the dissatisfaction with 
many things done by the court, has become a serious 
national concern. This vision of the lawyers to see be- 
hind every judgeship the great figure of the church, is 
not a vision, a hallucination, but a very earnest, a very 
sad reality. This co-operation of church and bar is not 
a choice but a necessity. Only through the judge can 
the church reach her aims for fabulous wealth, her insa- 
tiable hunger for power. To use the judge for this pur- 
pose is as logical as that two and two make four. 



102 HIGH TREASON 

The law as a practical force always receives its final 
effect through the pronouncement of the judge. Upon 
the judge depends the law's vitality. He gives it 
strength, or he makes it weak. If courts fail, the judge 
has failed, for the judge, and only the judge after all, 
holds the scales of justice in his hands ; he is independent 
of the jury, if it fails to deal out exact justice. If he is 
a scoundrel, the effect of his decision will be a great 
wrong to the country ; if he is an honest man, right will 
prevail and dignity will rule the court and trial. The 
land needs no lawyers; but what the land needs most is 
honest judges, well acquainted with legal science, royal 
men, fully in touch with the ethical standard of the 
time. Mostly we have not only scoundrels on the bench, 
but straightway shysters to whom social justice in all 
forms is a book with seven seals. If our judges were 
honest and brave men, fully abreast with the best thought 
of the times, with no other concern but the dutiful up- 
holding of the blessings of our constitution, not only all 
unrest among the people in the United States would auto- 
matically cease; but the law would not be a game for 
a hundred thousand shyster lawyers to make an ''Hon- 
est Living." It would be the pursuit of justice in which 
to be successful in their plea on bar, they would have 
to learn something, to meet decently the just and august 
judge 's legal science. 

The noble element of the legal profession to whom I 
appeal will understand these just reproaches, and will 
appreciate the spirit and the frankness in which they 
are offered, as evidence of my earnest desire to co-op- 
erate with them in the uplifting of the moral standard 
of the legal profession to higher morals and greater effi- 
ciency, before it is too late. Take this frank warning: 
"If the legal profession, blindfolded, will not under- 



AGAINST OUE CONSTITUTION 103 

stand the grave signs of the time in the United States, 
its members will suffer. The responsibility of the legal 
profession for the unrest of the people is overwhelming. 
In recognition of that fact the people may respectfully 
elevate its members to the exalted position they deserve 
Eespect is defined as an element dependent upon qualL 
ties that merit it ; otherwise it indicates either thought- 
lessness or cowardice, becoming not even submissive to 
the common rules of politeness." 

Consider it your highest duty to society, to the com- 
munity, to the state, and to the United States, if you 
really have the welfare of all of them at heart, earnestly 
and quickly to see to it that our courts are decently and 
lawfully conducted. If the church and the legal pro- 
fession combined further indulge in lawlessness, or the 
attempt to enforce upon the people a moral standard 
above which the community has risen, the result of this 
attempt must be detrimental, because the statute is val- 
uable not because it is law, as active goodness, but be- 
cause it is right ; otherwise it follows inevitably that law 
is valueless because it is destitute of right. If it goes 
further than it is at present, the people are simply 
forced by the first law of nature, the law of self-preserva- 
tion, to the necessity of choosing between an authorita- 
tive command of the law and the dictates of their sense 
of right, that means, "the definition of right," because 
the people make "the law." Cessante ratio legis, cessat 
lex ipsa; aut quod est idem, cessante causa, cessat ef- 
fectus — that is — if the rationale of law fails, the law in it- 
self fails ; or what is the same, if the cause fails the ef- 
fect fails. 

The people are inclined by clever contrivance to evade 
the law rather than their sense of right, permitting its 
enactment to do violence to the popular sense of right and 



104 HIGH TREASON 

expediency, thus arresting the moral and intellectual 
growth of the community — a contradiction of the con- 
stancy of the world's progress in enlightment and vir- 
tue. 

As law shall be the essence of reason, nothing is law 
that is not reason, for reason is the life of the law ; bereft 
of reason law is defamed. Judges who yield to it either 
willfully or by indifference, give obedience to a corpse, 
not to life. Statutes are waste paper if they lack undis- 
guised declaration and executive force. The enforcement 
of such a practice with its unrighteous and harmful con- 
sequences, is most unsupportable, untenable, and un- 
bearable. 

The enactment of law which outrages the common 
sense of the people, is an indefensible practice, attesting 
the passion with which the "system of false principles" 
is held by the legal talent for selfish, tortious aims; to 
rule the people by the obstruction of justice, by denial, 
and tortious delay of justice and promotion of injus- 
tice. The frank recognition on bench and bar of this 
undeniable fact, encourages the spirit of disobedience to 
law and licenses the violation of the law. The law that 
thus becomes a straight jacket in the hands of feigners of 
law, instead of being a comfortable, elastic, warm woolen 
jacket, is pretty certain to be broken by the people who 
retain enough moral and intellectual vitality not to 
support forever a government that fails properly to per- 
form its functions. Without "a rigorous, unremitting 
inspection and sharpest supervision" to compel the states 
to carry out the guarantees that the federal constitution 
grants its citizens, the granting of guarantees by the 
United States to immigrants is a farce, from the simple 
reason that the states don't care a match for the United 
States, nor do they care how their courts work; they 



'AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 105 

haven't yet awakened to the full knowledge of their 
obligation. The legal profession, the legislature and 
church take care of that! 

Our state government is divided in three parts : Ex- 
ecutive, judicial and legislative. Each one independent 
from the other. In the open letter to Cal Freeman I 
give proof of how the judicial and legislative part of our 
government is in the hand of the church, and how they 
obey her will. To interfere with the church's will is not 
the business of our executive. If the legal talent trusts 
to be in the majority by its connection with the church, 
to dictate to the people its will, it suffers on irrational 
worship of wrong that may find its reward by a radical 
cure on a telephone post. If the legal talent wants, as 
it demands, to have a voice in public affairs, to have ' ' a 
good conscience, ' ' it must be prepared to put in not only 
a little more brains but honesty also. I admit that con- 
science is a relative affair, depending on place and time, 
particularly on time; therefore, you gentlemen of the 
legal profession, pay full heed to my warning : Tempora 
mutantur et nas mutamuri in illis, i. e., The time changes 
and we change with the time. 

All Latin words that refer to war and constitutional 
law are to the point and each of great importance. If 
you know anything thoroughly, you will use the right 
word intuitively, and the Romans knew this well. It was 
Rome that first thought of the possibility of uniting the 
most foreign elements into one whole, instead of fighting 
like Athens and Sparta, one town against another town. 
It was Rome, the world empire, that fell and broke asun- 
der because the patricians denied the plebeians justice 
in spite of her seven million warriors that Rome had on 
hand at the time of her fall. If you further willfully 
and criminally deny the people the blessings of our con- 



106 HIGH TREASON 

stitution, the United States must in due course of time 
be swept with a political hurricane such as the world 
has never seen ; and the proud dream of Washington to 
become the center of the world, will be turned to ashes in 
the cleansing fire of that hurricane. Power of organiza- 
tion always implies sympathy. Ceterum censeo, organize 
your profession, and teach it above everything to rever- 
ence itself. Your life resembles the banquet of Damocles 
— the sword is ever suspended! 

Quot erat denonstrandum falsarius recte humanorum, 
that is : What was to be proved as erroneous to the best 
of rationale (or Sittlichheit) . If in what follows I 
appear iconoclastic in some of my statements or opinions, 
I would have you remember that these opinions are not 
academic theories formulated in an armchair, but are 
based on actual facts recorded during a long period of 
observation, research and personal experiences. I have 
the honor to offer you, on this occasion, assurances of 
my most courteous and distinguished consideration. 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



OPEN LETTER TO THE HEALTH OFFICER OF 
GRAYSON COUNTY. 

Dr. Ars. Medicinae Jones. 

Let's listen and hear how the skeleton sounds when it is 

rattled ! 

Hippocrates, an ancient Greek, lived 460 to 377 B. C, 
known as the Father of Medicine. He died at the age 
of sixty-three years. After human conception, he died 
in his autumn of life, man's glorious season to harvest 
what with energy and a masterly hand he had raised 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 107 

through the department of human effort where mind and 
experience count to great perfection and unparalleled 
success, after the vague apprehension of that far time 
behind, as to the art of medicine. Hard labor, braced 
with unremitting patience, guided by wisdom and pru- 
dence, was the secret marvel of his achievements. Inces- 
sant experiments, the love of the search for the truth in 
his field of knowledge, made that search, if not final and 
complete, at least satisfactory, the reward for work in 
doing that work well. 

That great man, whose name is written with indelible 
letters for all ages to come in the history of medicine, 
the art that purposes to relieve pain and grief from suf- 
fering mankind, understood to rule his life, and there- 
fore was entitled to give a blameless rule of life to all 
the followers of his noble profession. His oath as physi- 
cian has become a platform, a confession of faith, a prin- 
ciple for the entire medical world, unreservedly recog- 
nized and held up as such by its dutiful representatives. 

His oath genuinely reads, "I, Hippocrates, swear by 
Apollo the physician, Aesculapius, and Health, and All- 
Heal, that I shall consider for the benefit of my patients 
only and abstain from whatever is delatorius (noxious by 
neglect or delay) and mischievous. I shall give no dead- 
ly medicine to anyone, if asked, or suggest any such 
counsel ; and in like manner, I shall not give to a woman 
a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with 
holiness I will pass my life and practise my art. I will 
not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave 
this to be done by men, who are practitioners of this 
work. Into whatever house I gather, I will go into it 
for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every 
voluntary act of mischief and corruption whatever in 
connection with my profession and practice, or not in 



108 HIGH TREASON 

connection with it. All I hear or see in the life of man, 
which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not 
divulge as reckoning, that all such knowledge should be 
kept secret from a physician. While I continue to keep 
this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy 
life and the practice of the art, respected by all men 
in all times. But should I trespass and violate this oath 
may the reverse be my lot ." 

You, Dr. Jones, have grossly violated the principles of 
the medical science as given by Dr. Hippocrates, 2300 
years ago, acknowledged, practiced, and revered all the 
time by every faithful physician on the globe. In your 
emptiness and vanity you even defy the cardinal prin- 
ciple of your art, proclaimed by medical science and 
professional experience that reads, "No physician is 
justified to give testimony and judgment on a person's 
disease without a thorough, conscientious, professional 
examination of the patient." 

Honored with the position as Health Officer of Gray- 
son County, conferred upon you in utmost trust, faith- 
fully to serve and thus to further the interest of the com- 
munity, do you receive payment for your services from 
the people. In the commission as Health Officer it is your 
official duty to prevent, that any sane person be sent to 
an Insane Asylum from this County on corrupt motives. 

My arrest, trial and conviction of insanity were 
wholly unwarranted acts; in fact, scandalous ones, per- 
formed in the name of the State. This conviction was 
impossible had you done your duty faithfully to your 
commission, as an honest man would have done. By 
your indefensible low standard of medical ethics, trans- 
gressing your license in wasteful practices without judg- 
ment and tact, you joined and assisted the mean plot of 
the lawless element on bench and bar of the Grayson 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 109 

County Court, forcibly to restrain me of my liberty in 
sending me to a madhouse for fifty months in the inter- 
est of that clique, in liberty loving Texas, through ' ' The 
high purpose of their office" to curb my perspicuity, 
imagining that an hourly intercourse for so long time 
with men whose spiritual heritage has been squandered 
in one way or other must be unfavorable to the propaga- 
tion and the cultivation of subtlety of thought. 

Guilty of hypocrisy, a cold-blooded arranger of great 
moral offenses, I charge you, and all your honest col- 
leagues must do so, with gross professional misconduct 
and outrage for which, by rights, you have forfeited 
your license to practice medicine. You are a bad exam- 
ple of professional conduct ; you are a living disgrace to 
a noble profession. Your diploma to cure should be can- 
celled and you should be dismissed from practicing medi- 
cine with disgrace as a quack and a criminal of recog- 
nized merit and ability. The most horrible crime one 
set of men can commit on a fellow citizen in Grayson 
County is to send him as a sane man on corrupt motives 
to the Terrell Asylum, a veritable hell, for safekeeping as 
a patient. 

You are unable to exculpate yourself from the blame 
to have been an active accomplice in that crime. There 
was not one evidence upon which to base so serious a 
charge against me, as that of your mere sworn sugges- 
tion that I was of unsound mind. To give weight to 
your testimony and judgment as a physician, yourself 
assumed the title to be " An expert physician on mental 
disorder," by this expression confessing to possess more' 
corporal than mental efficiency in your art. 

LA great, thorough specialist as physician does not con- 
fine himself to an opinion gained by a glance, but com- 
bines evidences, and arguments, and reflection, and 



110 HIGH TREASON 

thoughts founded on careful observation and examina- 
tion of the patient to arrive at a judgment, slowly form- 
ing its points to give it strength ; much less that he would 
oppressively, abusively and corruptively put his knowl- 
edge, his honor, his reputation and his family happiness 
in the servitude of criminals. Medical science is de- 
fined as the pursuit of truth ! 

You belong to that kind of bragging specialists, who 
will undertake anything they cannot effect, who get a 
reputation for profound wisdom because nobody has the 
courage to contradict them. You know, that I did not 
recognize in my trial for insanity your competency as a 
physician, refuting your mental endowment and com- 
bating your position. The "persecutor," Cal Freeman, 
acting as County Attorney, warmly defended your pro- 
fessional skill, in his admiration for you going so far as 
to declare that if he should suffer on delusion, that means 
imagining and believing things to be true that are not 
true, he would entrust his afflicted brain to your art to 
secure a speedy recovery of his ' 'teeming brains. ' ' Later 
he admitted, consciously or unconsciously, that you were 
a foul-minded perjurer at best. Stating that I was a 
sane man on the ground that my expressions gave proof 
of choicest thoughts, a state of mind called perspicacity, 
Cal Freeman confuted his mind's own work as to your 
skill, and all that prudence and propriety of a physician 
suggests, representing the fruit of his weak apprehen- 
sion as his vivid imagination. I was sent to an insane 
asylum, altho recognized as a sane man at present, 
on the awkward invention of having been insane, a dan- 
gerous man, not safe at large, thirty years ago in Ger- 
many. 

Your, and Cal Freeman's, bearing in my insanity 
case was a most shameful betrayal of public trust, mak- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 111 

ing a farce of what ought to be considered a very serious 
matter. 

When the thing is done the consequences must be 
borne ! I suggest that you know as much as a physician. 
Providence, as conception of a deity, is not necessary 
for the procedure; it is merely the working out of the 
laws of nature to their natural end, the logical and con- 
sistent process of cause and effect. I therefore suppose 
the aftermath in those fields where your golden harvest 
grew, will be a disappointment. If you did believe in 
justice, liberty and fairness, you would find very respon- 
sible days in the future, and a dense atmosphere, not 
comfortable for you, but suitable to your nefarious act. 
Truth, the old faith of the Brahmins, is stronger than fic- 
tion, but your fiction is greater in being a great deal 
shyer, an unsustainable position on your part. 

I always congratulate the country that has in its public 
service men of eminent fitness for their position and most 
agreeable as personalities. But where the contrary is 
the case and we have criminals as pretentious officials in 
our public service, with whom to deal after their merits, 
the civil authority is too weak or too shy, it devolves upon 
the people to do it. As the great amount of legal ma- 
chinery proves not only inadequate to declare and exe- 
cute the truth but cunningly acts against human and 
divine laws, violating them continually all the time as 
I experienced in the Grayson County Court and the Ter- 
rell Asylum, the administration of civil laws in Grayson 
County of the State of Texas gives the people no safety, 
but is an entire failure. Their maintenance is worthless 
for the purpose created and therefore nothing but an 
expensive luxury. By necessity, not by choice, to the 
honor and in the interest of the community, the people 
are compelled to look after these institutions themselves 



112 HIGH TREASON 

to secure their lawful and decent conducting. There is 
no constitutional provision against the people's taking 
the case in their own hands, but there is the moral obli- 
gation to do it — and do it well ! 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



ADDRESS TO THE EX-COUNTY ATTORNEY, 
CAL FREEMAN. 

Do not go the circuitous route of law, go to the foun- 
tain head. 

Sir: In my open letter to J. T. Suggs, at the end of 
these articles, I have shown your inefficiency in office as 
legal adviser of the Court of Commissioners. Your neg- 
ligence of duty in the McAnaney case has been of such a 
degree that makes your bond liable as far as it goes, to 
recover the monetary loss accrued to the county by the 
faithlessness of your stewardship. 

In the fall of 1911, prominent citizens of Sherman, 
noted Church members, prepared a petition to the Court 
of the Commissioners, urged thereto by the Church, not 
to assess Y. M. -C. A. property. The foreman of the 
Court of the Commissioners, Mr. Short, became aware 
of this petition and called a secret session of the Com- 
missioners to counsel how to meet this petition. The 
Commissioners resolved to assess the Y. M. C. A. prop- 
erty and Mr. Johnson, of Whitesboro, was delegated to 
answer the petition. The petition was personally pre- 
sented by the petitioners to the Court of the Commission- 
ers while in session. Mr. Short declared that the Court 
was ever ready favorably to answer justified claims of 
property owners not to assess their property, supposing 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 113 

the law was not against it. He called on you as the legal 
adviser of the Court to explain the law in the case be- 
fore the Court. You said, ' ' Gentlemen : The law of course 
demands the assessment of the Y. M. C. A. property. A 
petition of Church members has been presented to the 
house of Congress not to assess the Y. M. C. A. prop- 
erty. The lower house has granted the petition, but the 
last senate refused to take action on it. If I were you 1 
should not assess the Y. M. C. A. property; it serves 
religious purposes and there is not the glimmer of a 
doubt that the new senate will pass the law that Y. M. 
C. A. property is exempted from assessment." The 
silence that followed your address was interrupted by 
the ex-County Judge J. Q. Adamson's remark, address- 
ing the Commissioners : ' ' Gentlemen : The right way to 
do the wrong thing is, to do it and keep still," This 
ex-County Judge J. Q. Adamson has a real passion for 
wrongdoing, indulging in it to the extreme limit of 
safety, morally, supremely unfit to be on the bench or bar. 
The Commissioner, Mr. Johnson, arose from his seat 
and declared that the Court of Commissioners would do 
its sworn duty and assess the Y. M. C. A. property duti- 
fully. By your bearing in this case you again were faith- 
less in office, not only violating your oath in office, but in- 
ducing the Court of the Commissioners to violate their 
oath of office in assessing falsely. By this act you auto- 
matically forfeited forever your right to function as an 
attorney at law and to hold legal office as keeper of the 
law. Your confidence that it is a plaything for the 
Church to bribe the votes of the senators in her interest is 
most remarkable. You, the Church, and every reflective 
man knows that the Y. M. C. A. organization is a com- 
mercial enterprise of the purest water and a very profit- 
able one, bringing immense income to the Church. What 



114 HIGH TREASON 

did the Church pay you for your service in performance 
of which you sacrificed your honor ? Nothing ? It would 
be about the right valuation of your loss — where there is 
no value, Mr. Cal Freeman, there is no loss! The con- 
clusion drawn from that fact is, that you are a man 
without honor, faithfully expressed, I should say a 
scoundrel without it, who cheats his master who pays 
him for his services, to serve the Church, expecting that 
she gives him a prebend in a district judgeship when his 
turn comes, as the reward for his treason. 

Your conception of the position of a county attorney 
is childishly confused. Your duty is to represent the 
State in its law inviolate. Then, upholding the law, your 
next duty is to declare the law in the case of violation, 
leaving to Court and jury the execution of the law. 
In my sanity case you did not uphold the law that reads : 
' ' No sane man shall be sent to the insane asylum on cor- 
rupt motives," but you joined a plot to assist it in the 
violation of that law. I was arrested without a warrant, 
a thing that you cannot even do in Russia, but a thousand 
times a day is performed in the United States willfully 
and unjustly. I was put in prison. What right has 
the State of Texas to imprison an American citizen, de- 
priving him of all comforts of life, to humiliate him, to 
degrade him, to expose him to mental and physical suf- 
fering because he is ill ? Four days later I was brought 
to the courthouse for trial. I declared : " I am not ready 
for trial. I am under no accusation. Where there is no 
complaint there is no judge. I have not eaten one bite 
for four days and am exhausted. I have no counsel. I 
have no witnesses who can testify as to my sanity. I 
refuse the jury unable intellectually to follow my ex- 
planations. I wish that my own peers would try me, not 
the peers of Hamp. P. Abney, Hassell and accessories 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 115 

sub-crimine. I refuse you, Cal Freeman, as prosecuting 
attorney. You have nothing to prosecute on a sick man, 
but I can prosecute you for grave misconduct in office. I 
refuse you, Judge J. Q. Adamson, twice indicted by the 
Grand Jury to be guilty of felony and therefore under 
suspicion of lack of the good moral character of a judge 
to preside in a sanity case. The jury has not been sworn 
in in my presence, a violation of my right. I know what 
that whole farce means. Set the trial for tomorrow. Let 
me go home to furnish the sworn statements of your mis- 
conduct in office. In other sworn statements I shall give 
satisfactory proofs that my accusation that the judiciary 
in the Grayson Couny Court is rotten from top to bottom 
is justified. ' ' 

Denying me all bills of right of the Federal and State 
Constitution, you said: "We go on in the trial. " Judge 
J. Q. Adamson consented to your decision, adding : "In 
sanity cases the judge chooses the jury." I answered: 
" Forebeholding all my rights, I shall follow you in the 
trial. I do not know how to proceed in an insanity case, 
as I do not know how I have to behave as an insane man, 
but I shall do the best I can." 

Officials of the Court and the lawyers, Hamp. P. Abney, 
Hassell and Silas Hare acted as accusers of my insanity. 
The evidences on which they based their opinion as to 
my mental disorder were so foolish that you did not have 
the courage to bring an accusation before the jury. The 
jury, without any instructions from the trial judge (it 
probably had received its instructions before the trial), 
left the court room for counsel, and, turning heels, re- 
turned with the verdict, "Guilty of insanity." The law- 
yer, Hamp. P. Abney, at once held counsel with his law 
partner, Hassell, after which the lawyer Hassell rushed 
to you, crying twice, "Add to the verdict the words, 



116 HIGH TREASON 

'not safe at large.' " I never have shown any tendency 
to violence, nor manifested ill temper, inability and lack 
of self-control to justify this addition to the verdict, an 
unwarranted illegal act. This act splendidly showed how 
Hamp. P. Abney and Hassell, the chieftains of the law- 
less gang on the Grayson County Court, control the mem- 
bers of the Court, dictated its procedure and wrote the 
judgment! I was treated with gross and manifest in- 
justice, sis sub judical That means, "Cal Freeman, you 
are on trial. ' ' 

The statute in a sanity case reads : ' ' The judge or the 
jury trying a person's sanity and finding him insane has 
to decide the second question whether or not it is essential 
for him to be deprived of his liberty in being imprisoned. 
If the judge or the jury finds that it is essential for him 
to be deprived of his liberty, being dangerous to him- 
self or others, a terror, a dismay, or a joke to the public, 
then the person may lawfully be imprisoned, but not 
until then," In answering the question as to his danger- 
ousness it is not sufficient that he is suspicious of dan- 
gerousness or has made threats. Threats are not deeds. 
He must have actually performed deeds that have the 
character of dangerousness, otherwise a person cannot be 
deprived of his liberty because he is ill. A jury or a 
judge who violates the statute in not answering the ques- 
tion of his dangerousness renders an incomplete verdict 
that does not support the judgment. A judgment ren- 
dered on the verdict of a jury that is not supported by 
the verdict is null and void. 

Cal Freeman! Efficiency runs into every well-con- 
sidered detail of person and of method to the extent of 
lifting the ideals of service above every personal interest. 
In this, you have shown in my insanity case the moral 
sense of a yellow cat. You corruptly, abusively and 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 117 

apprehensively used the power vested in you in utmost 
trust to serve a gang of criminals. From a prosecutor 
you turned a persecutor and prostituted the goddess of 
justice, soiling her stainless hermine. I was sent back 
to jail ! 

An honest old man urged me to bring a habeas corpus 
procedure. I replied : ' ' There is no cause to do it ; they 
will again furnish a jury which will find me insane. I 
am in the best fix in which I can be. I shall go to the 
insane asylum. There is a board of faithful physicians. 
By fastening the seismograph on my pulse my nature 
itself will write a diagram that infallibly convinces the 
physician that I am a little smarter than the law allows. ' ' 
The man replied : ' ' That outrageous gang on bench and 
bar here will not send yon to the asylum; they will keep 
you in jail for years and the lice will eat you up." On 
second thought I changed my mind and consented to a 
new trial. It took place on the 29th of February, 1912. 
There were witnesses enough on my side who testified as 
to my sanity in a way that would have freed any man 
from a false accusation before any court in Christendom, 
if my reasoning and fair words did not have that effect, 
except before the Grayson County Court. 

While on the witness chair we both had a conversation. 
You asked: "How many cases do you have in court?" 
Answer: "I guess about a dozen. It is not the question, 
how many cases I have in court, but the question is, how 
many cases have been tried in court. I have not had one 
case on trial. Give me the trial." You: "Suppose the 
Court should declare you of unsound mind, will you 
bring suit against the State of Texas for indemnity?" 
Answer: "I do not know." You: "You do know." 
Answer: "Then leave it to my discretion." You: "No, 
I will not let you go. Answer the question. ' ' Answer : 



118 HIGH TREASON 

1 ' Rationally you cannot expect a judgment from a man 
whom you accuse to be of unsound mind." You: 
"OK, you know so mucK." Answer: "Yes, I know that 
the sovereignty of the State of Texas is limited, a limited 
sovereignty is no sovereignty." You: "Then will you 
bring a suit ? ' ' Absorbed in thought I did not answer at 
once, and you cried: "Answer yes or no." Abruptly 
turning to you, I replied : " To satisfy your curiosity, I 
herewith declare that in due course of time, I shall bring 
suit against the State of Texas and every one connected 
with this dirty mess here in quantity, quality, longitude, 
latitude, altitude, attitude, platitude with fortitude, fully 
sufficient in law." "When I made this remark, you blushed 
and a snicker ran through the audience. And I am 
holding court here now, Cal Freeman. You are on trial. 
My preparation is complete, conscious of my ability to a 
convenient but imperative discussion of your lawless 
acts, and I do not render myself past master in the art of 
turning a compliment. 

You said: "Your pretense is the judiciary of Grayson 
County is rotten from top to bottom. Is this true ? " I 
answered : " I cannot deny facts. ' ' You asked : ' ' Then is 
it your opinion that there is not one Konest man in tKis 
court KmseV I replied: "Not one, except the Honor- 
able Judge Pearson of McKinney. That man is an 
honest man. ' ' I did not exclude in my judgment the new 
district judge W. M. Peck, so you handed me a letter 
written to that judge. He had handed that letter to 
you to establish my insanity. I read the letter to the jury 
and asked you : ' ' What is wrong with this letter ? ' ' You 
did not reply. I knew what was wrong with it. The ad- 
dress, "my dear sir," and "my assurances of high es- 
teem" before my signature were wrong in this letter. 

In your speech to the jury you admitted my sanity at 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 119 

present, on the ground that nry expressions proved 
choicest thoughts, but ordered the jury to reaffirm the 
first verdict on the false pretense to have been insane 
thirty years ago in Germany. They could do it, so you 
said, because there was no appeal in my case. As to that 
pretense the law reads : ' ' All actions of the Court against 
a free man are subject to review of the Court of Criminal 
Appeals." You knew exactly that the finding of the 
Court was an illegal act, a high crime. Either your 
knowledge of the law is that of a shyster, or you wilfully 
misrepresented the law. It is sure that in my sanity trial 
you were incapable and unfit to discharge your official 
duty, and had been guilty of malfeasance and non- 
feasance as County Attorney. Your bearing was wrong 
from the beginning, and I perform a public duty, 
because the public is entitled to information in subject- 
ing your operations to criticism. 

I have given proof that the first verdict was null and 
void by incompleteness. In reaffirming this verdict and 
making the same error not to answer the question of 
my dangerousness, the verdict of insanity in the second 
trial again was null and void. The jury had to decide 
my present state of mind at the time of the trial, not 
my assumed state of mind thirty years ago. To induce 
the jury to give a verdict on that false pretense was a 
criminal act on your part. You at least ought to know 
the law, especially that which pertains to your duty. 
This is ample proof of your inefficiency in your position. 
To be hindered from making the same blunder in the 
future, you must be disbarred from practicing the law 
in the United States in the interest of the community. 

The true distinction of a man rests not on what a 
man has or what he is, but on the disposition he makes 
of his possessions and of himself ; that is, upon the faith- 






120 HIGH TREASON 

fulness with which he discharges the trust which the 
people have Committed to him, either in placing posses- 
sions in his keeping, or in endowing him with certain 
qualities involving functions. Lacking faithfulness, 
trustworthiness, defendableness, you are lacking in the 
elements of true character. Faithfulness in one line of 
endeavor, in one sort of effort, is what our public servants 
most need, not only ability out reliability. 

You willfully and tyrannically dismissed the two 
felony cases against the ' ' Honorable ' ' Judge J. Q. Adam- 
son. The law reads: "No case of felony shall be dis- 
missed; it must be tried." You followed therein your 
predecessor in office, the ' ' Honorable ' ? Ex-County Judge, 
Charlie Vowel, who with one stroke of his pen dismissed 
twenty-eight indictments of the grand jury in felony 
cases against the Ex-Sheriff Russell, making the sover- 
eignty of the Grand Jury a dependency of the County 
Attorney. Such lawless action in bench and bar of Gray- 
son County are the cause of the great distrust of that 
court, and consequently the cause of distrust of the 
entire social system. Usurpation of power to which they 
have no right by County Attorneys is justifiable cause 
for unrest among the people. You knew perfectly how 
rotten the Grayson County Court is. To enable a gang 
of criminals to send me to an Insane Asylum for many 
years, you became their leader and assisted them. With- 
out your consent to that crime it could not be committed. 
What difference is there between your conspiracy to 
send me to an Insane Asylum and the conspiracy that 
murdered Herman Eosenthal ? Rosenthal died instantly. 
I have suffered a thousand deaths in the madhouse. The 
instigator of the Rosenthal murder died in the electric 
chair; you deserve the same punishment, or at least to 
wear stripes for your lifetime, because you are a capital 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 121 

criminal. "Were you the man higher up who gave order 
that I should be killed the 11th of October, 1914? The 
executioner, Tom Jones, known to the patients and called 
"the three-score murderer" in the Insane Asylum, told 
me, that "The Big Man" had given him the order to 
kill me, asking me, if I knew it. I replied : * ' I do." In 
this first assault with the intent to kill me, I got away 
with several broken ribs; after the second assault with 
intent to kill me, the 27th of October, 1914, I was very 
ill. I hope you will understand that my question pro- 
ceeds only from motives of delicacy, not from motives of 
common curiosity. 

If you gave that order you ought to consult the expert 
on insanity, Dr. Jones. Your action would indicate to 
him that you suffer from a temporary acute appearance 
of one of the phases of mental unbalance which has not 
been solved yet, and therefore has not been classified. 
But the District Attorney of the State of New York, 
the Hon. Judge Whitman, has found a radical cure for 
this mental disease by electrocution of the patient. You 
have slept quietly the fifty months of my confinement, 
knowing me to be a sane man as prisoner in a madhouse. 
Cal Freeman! you are an untrue man — faithfully ex- 
pressed, I should say a consummate scoundrel! Scath- 
ing as my confinement was, it nevertheless bears evidence 
of self-restraint, that but increases its force. 

As to your accusation that I was insane thirty years 
ago in Germany, I remark : As a general thing, if a man 
has very positive opinions he is strongly prejudiced. 
How a man thinks is reflected in his deeds. The man 
who loves his work will put his life into it. To put in 
one's very best efforts must certainly get results which 
contribute the highest return for every ounce of energy 
expended. So I made up my mind thirty years ago in 



122 HIGH TREASON 

Germany to build the so-called Queisthal-Bahn, to secure 
a direct connection from the navigable Oder to the boun- 
dary of Austria. An industry must have transportation 
facilities for the raw materials as well as manufactured 
goods. The river Queis has enormous water power com- 
ing from the Giant Mountain with most rapid fall. 
Those powers could not economically be used because in 
the spring and the month of August high water would 
have destroyed every industrial edifice erected on its 
banks. An equal flow of water the whole year round and, 
an absolute protection of establishments against destruc- 
tion by high water was imperative. A valley lock at 
Marklissa, Silesia, answered the purpose. There were 
20,000 acres of young timber land suitable for a first-class 
testing and practice ground for artillery, offering a range 
of fifteen miles long. I thought: a shooting place is an 
object of curiosity for thousands and thousands of vis- 
itors during the year, besides the thousands and thou- 
sands of soldiers that were employed there to practice. 
They all leave money in every village they pass. The 
more such "life water" flows into the community, the 
more profusely it must thrive and develop economically. 
That was my idea. 

The first article for the erection of the valley lock at 
Marklissa was written and published in August, 1887, 
in Sagan, Silesia. It was hard work to convince the 
Government of the usefulness of these three projects, 
especially the building of the valley lock that I called 
"An urgent task of culture of the first rank, prophesy* 
ing that the twentieth century would be the century of 
electricity." To give my word more power, I called to- 
gether the representatives of three towns and, to-wit, 
twenty-one villages. A committee was formed for "the 
economical uplifting of the Queisthal" which selected me 



KGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 123 

for its president. I claim to have done faithfully, in the 
name of my constituents, all work pertaining to the 
realization of these three projects alone, as laid down in 
documents in the Reichstag, and other branches of the 
German Government. I admit, that in accordance with 
my temperament, I have used sharp edged notes, so 
frank in language that they assumed the form of a com- 
mand in my communications with the different govern- 
mental branches with whom I had to deal, considering 
it my right as representative of a large populace. All 
three projects were realized long ago. The plan of the 
valley lock at Marklissa was exhibited at the "World's 
Fair in St. Louis, 1904, and forced recognition from the 
builders of waterworks the world over, through the mag- 
nitude, the durability, and the ingenuity of its construc- 
tion. I claim the merit, laid doivn in documents, to have 
brought the rock in rolling to build valley locks in Ger- 
many. 

The German government is slow in action, but when 
it acts, it acts perfectly to the extreme. After the first 
valley lock was built, others sprung up like mushrooms, 
the admiration, the envy, and the pattern for the entire 
civilized world, an everlasting blessing and an inex- 
haustible source of riches for all generations to come. 
What I have performed in Germany, as a true son of 
the soil that bore me, is a first class social deed. To 
charge a man who performed that deed as insane and as 
punishment for his achievement to send him for many 
years to a madhouse in "liberty loving America/' is as 
wickedly false as it is palpably absurd. Mr. Cal Free- 
man ! it is not the profession but the spirit of righteous- 
ness and of judgment, which should enter into the work 
of a man whom the community honors in utmost trust 
to be keeper of its laws. You have been weighed and 



124 HIGH TREASON 

found wanting; you must be disbarred from practicing 
the law in the United States forever for right's sake. 
In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



ADDRESS TO CHARLES BATSELL, SHERMAN, 
ATTORNEY AT LAW. 

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than 
he has to act one, no more right to say a rude thing to 
another than to knock him down — except there is a seri- 
ous justification and cause for it; then nothing is so 
delightful as the hearing and the speaking of the truth! 

Sir: I like people that find more in one than they 
expect. I was glad that you documented that as assistant 
"Persecutor," the most odious word in the English lan- 
guage. I never thought I had so much nerve and spirit 
as to be a dangerous man, not safe at large — justice is 
that, which is established ! 

You know the lawless element in our Court as well 
as I do, and you were very eager to defend Hamp P. 
Abney and Hassell, who in an ostentatious manner pre- 
tend and imagine that they are powerful in their deeds 
and have advantages that another citizen does not enjoy, 
by belonging to a most dangerous ring of faithlessness. 
They are by no means so full of the milk of human kind- 
ness that sympathy and generosity would induce them 
to serve the people honestly as you painted them. Their 
great reason to call on you and Cal Freeman for help 
was very probably their urgent want of allies to fight 
me in the dark from ambush better than openly — honesty 
needs no disguise or ornament ! 

You both sprang eagerly to save your confreres in 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 125 

danger, by the allegation that I accused the Grayson 
County judiciary to be dishonest and rotten from top 
to bottom, without cause and justification. I pleaded 
guilty to have made these expressions, but I did not 
admit that I had made them, as you pretended, mali- 
ciously, with the intent thereby to injure the reputation 
of a noble profession, for the purpose of defaming their 
legitimate legal influence and activity as judges and 
advocates in the performance of their duty of citizen- 
ship. My "invective harangue," so you pretended, 
lacked dignity and self-restraint. Being without foun- 
dation, it deserved that I, the originator of this libel, 
willy nilly, be sent to an Insane Asylum for safe keep- 
ing, for naught could curb my imagination. Although 
with this gross and manifest injustice, giving prima 
facie proof of their guilt, you documented Hamp P. 
Abney's and Hassell's lawlessness and criminality, you 
seemed to be sublimely unconscious of that fact. To 
find out wrong, Mr. Batsell, requires a certain amount 
of intelligence; but to cure evil requires very much, 
and it takes time to bring it about. Every citizen 
should do a little bit towards this end ! 

I love and sympathize with miserable sinners by na- 
ture ; but I have to accomplish my duty, as public prose- 
cutor, to expose them and bring them to justice. What 
I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people 
think of me in doing it! I can well understand that 
my attitude toward the misconduct of public servants 
arouses their indignation and revolts their conscience, 
not trained in the sound principles and ideals of man- 
kind; but it is pride that does it, and a man's strength 
is in his pride. 

It therefore must have deeply hurt your feelings, Mr. 
Batsell, if you thought of my helplessness in the mad- 



126 HIGH TREASON 

house, where the right of free speech was denied me. 
He who willfully and criminally misrepresents the letter 
and spirit of the law as a licensed lawyer is the Billy 
Goat in the garden of civilization, and its greatest dan- 
ger ! His happiness and joy is to interpret laws with a 
foul mind, and where he cannot do that he bribes judge 
and jury to pass judgment in his interest. You know 
that! 

As it is up to me to prove my charges to be justified 
by substantial proof in the fight for a lawful, decently 
conducted government, my attack is not made against a 
class, but against the individual; to the end as a most 
vital proposition that comes home to every man, woman 
and child of this community, whether good, clean, and 
decent government shall exist, or whether oppression by 
this lawless element on bench and bar shall prevail — a 
boss and machine rule, systematically to promote injus- 
tice in court by obstruction of justice, to foster their 
selfish aims. 

Publicity is as essential to good, honest and efficient 
government, as freedom of speech is to dutiful, repre- 
sentative government. It, therefore is a duty of every 
citizen to exert himself to the utmost to help reform 
every abuse on bench and bar by demanding publicity 
of lawless acts. Only a government actually conducted 
on sound principles can stand ; any other must inevitably 
fall sooner or later, as immoral principles and actions 
fall. My indictments are free from ambiguity, uncer- 
tainty and redundancy. They clearly prove every 
claim of the accusation charged. Coming within these 
requirements they take the full character of a definite 
representation, as they can be meant, and shall be meant 
for nothing else. Using freedom of speech and liberty 
of action in their widest opportunity for exemplification 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 127 

and for rectification of national and political wrong, I 
claim to do nothing but my bounden duty to my fellow- 
men, who for one reason or another cannot do it. 

Charles Batsell: Assuming that the state whom you 
represented in your position stands in the relation of a 
stern and serious parent to the alleged offender, and 
that its sole interest in the premises is to learn the truth 
and to apply the law according to the truth ; you should 
be an inquirer bent on eliciting the truth through facts, 
without any reference to where they lead or what they 
establish. Consideration and kindness in doing it would 
reflect your wisdom and ability to do it. You have 
grossly failed in my case ; you have hardly used anything 
but misconstruction and oppression to serve the special 
interests of the foul inner ethics of the legal profession 
for the purpose of securing immunity for Hamp P. Abney 
and Hassell for their crimes, considering it an unheard 
of profanation of the legal profession to lose such ef- 
fective members in your system to rule the people by 
high treason against our constitution. If guilt is per- 
sonal, then you should wear stripes with greater merit 
than that poor negro boy who sold a pint of whiskey and 
was sent one year to the penitentiary for that enormous 
crime, enormous only to the legal profession in its servi- 
tude to the church. 

You knew that I was not insane, you heard the truth 
from witnesses, but you wanted to hear the lies to justify 
the premeditated verdict of the jury which was fully 
known to you. When one of our best citizens, Mr. 
Sheehey, the druggist at Sherman, testified to my sanity, 
he called your attention to the fact that from the con- 
tents of my writings, which he had read, he had not 
gained the conviction that I was an insane man, but a 
highly intelligent man, you impolitely turned down his 



128 HIGH TREASON 

testimony with your caustic remark, l l Yes, bloodless lit- 
erature.' ' Mr. Charles Batsell, I admit that what I write 
here is bloodless literature, but when I shall write about 
the hellish inner workings of the insane asylum at Ter- 
rell, and show how horrible and damnable they are, I 
shall deliver a bloody piece of literature that will satisfy 
even your suspicious mind. 

Your discourteous bearing toward my witness, John 
Smith, in my trial, justified the idea, so prevalent in the 
legal profession as an exalted privilege, that when a 
witness takes the stand he becomes the legitimate sub- 
ject of abuse by the lawyer. Without limit you made my 
witness an object of your ridicule, sneers and denuncia- 
tions, because he told you the truth. He spited your 
misleading questions, therefore you had no use for him 
as witness, so you declared, when that man stood by the 
truth, that you did not want to know. ^ 

You, Charles Batsell, acting as County Attorney, were 
discourteous to my witnesses, intentionally misleading 
each one of them into frivolous contradiction; you were 
a distorter of truth, and a simple farmer, that John 
Smith a man without education taught you the good 
lesson that your frivolous suggestions as plea in bar 
were of no avail. You abused your privileges as a law- 
yer; you dishonored your position as law-keeper; you 
subordinated your higher duties to society to the one 
supreme end of winning the case to send me to a mad- 
house, regardless of decent methods, in conspiracy with 
Hamp P. Abney, Hassell, and accessories sub crimine. 

Your action discredits the machinery of justice and 
impresses the public mind with the idea that court trials 
are merely parades of liars, perjurers and scoundrels, in 
a degree even that self-respecting people prefer to avoid 
the court house as they would flee a den of shame. You 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 129 

are guilty of having used the power vested in you as 
law-keeper, oppressively, abusively and corruptly, and. 
must be disbarred from practicing law forever in the 
United States, as not possessing the good moral character 
that is conditio sine qua non for admission to the bar, 
in the interest of the community. Your injustice pays 
itself with frightful compound interest — "you shall not 
transgress or violate the rights of others or exceed your 
power/ ' says the federal constitution. 

The only way to have moral men in office is to choose 
moral men, and distrust their honesty. We must only 
trust in an officer's good quality, in his capacity for his 
position, his faithful performance of his duty, so long as 
frequent investigations give undoubted proof of this. 
This is the only way to prevent secret offenses and there- 
with total disruption of state affairs, guaranteeing the 
people that villainies, misconduct and malpractice will 
duly be brought to light. We cannot have true servants 
if we do not inspect the work that they shall do for us. 
Our servants must ignore purely selfish consideration and 
devote themselves to the greatest good for the greatest 
number. On that simple basis is founded all the good 
rules of deportment which serve and hold together and 
mould for service the various contingents of the com- 
munity. Doubtless, my proposition will shock the or- 
dinary lawyers to liear it suggested that their monopoly 
of the honors and emoluments of public service be im- 
paired by demanding of them to do their duty and do it 
well; but the good man whose first concern is for the 
public, not for himself, will have little difficulty in per- 
ceiving that there is merit in my proposal. 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



130 HIGH TREASON 



ADDRESS TO SILAS HARE, LAWYER AT 
SHERMAN. 

There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry 
of murder. 

Sir: 

On the 22nd of January, 1912, the Honorable Judge 
W. M. Peck acted for the first time in his capacity as 
district judge of the fifteenth judicial district, setting 
the cases in trial for the current week. I asked him that 
a certain suit be set for trial arguing that it had been 
four years in court and that two hundred and eighty-six 
cases behind its number had already been tried and, dis- 
posed of. The Honorable Judge replied I should wait 
five years longer. The " wisdom" of this decision in- 
fected your brains and you cried, "Set it the 30th of 
February. ' ' The judge did not remark anything to this 
contempt of court. I therefore wrote a letter to the Hon- 
orable Judge, W. M. Peck, demanding punishment for 
your impudence. The next day at twelve o'clock, I 
called on you, inviting you for a talk. I asked you if you 
were conscious of having made that foolish remark. You 
affirmed it. I then said, ' ' Mr. Hare, if you are hunting 
trouble, you only need to get into trouble with me, and 
you will get plenty. If you willfully and maliciously 
step on me, you step on a venomous serpent. I shall ruin 
you. Do you understand ? ' ' You replied, " I do. ' ' With 
this I left you. In my sanity trial, Cal Freeman, accused 
me of having threatened to take your life with the ra- 
mark, "I shall ruin you." I explained that I was not 
blood-thirsty, that by "ruining a man" we Germans un- 
derstand to destroy his social, political and financial 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 131 

standing, with the simple weapon of a pencil, adding: 
1 ' Here is my dangerous weapon, ' ' showing my pencil. 

I possessed sworn statements about your official acts 
that I confidentially handed to the late Judge Pearson of 
McKinney. I said: "Judge, take these statements into 
your chamber and read them carefully, they are like a 
novel. Give them back to me to-morrow and tell me if 
the men in question must be disbarred from practicing 
the law in the United States, as guilty of the accusation 
therein named. ' ' The next morning Judge Pearson, sit- 
ting at his desk, called to me and said: "Dignowity, I 
haven't the two rolls with me this morning, I have locked 
them up in a safe. This afternoon, I am free, come at 
two o'clock in the county court room, I must talk with 
you. I shall see to it that no one disturbs us." This 
man was so honest that when he handed me back the rolls, 
he remarked : ' ' Untie the string, and see if one statement 
is missing." I replied: "Your word as to that is fully 
sufficient, judge. I should humiliate myself in distrusting 
it." We had a long talk. The result of which was my 
remark: "I shall ruin yoti," because I was conscious of 
what I was talking about. As to my remark: "If you 
willfully and maliciously step on me, you step on a 
venomous serpent," that Cal Freeman, in the trial, 
charged as an expression of an insane man, I explain: 
educated men sometimes seek to sharpen with symbolic 
substitutions the poignancy of actuality. It is self evi- 
dent that language being organic, expresses itself in 
organic terms, which must be relative in intensity to the 
moral repugnance pertaining to the idea they symbolize. 
A venomous serpent hurts nobody if left alone, but if one 
steps upon her accidentally, or willfully, she will bite 
deep, and hang on, in self defense, below the knee of her 
assailant. Silas Hare ! I bite you above your navel, where 



132 HIGH TREASON 

honest men have their conscience, and the wound I inflict 
upon you will still forever your ambition to be a lawyer 
in being guilty of Crimen falsi. 

I do not need to publish what I know of your official 
actions to disbar you, as every one of your confreres 
knows what you are worth. The fact is that you joined a 
mean plot to send a sane man to an insane asylum to 
secure his conviction and thus to serve the corrupt mo- 
tives of Hamp P. Abney, Hassell and accessories sub- 
crimine. You must be disbarred from bench and bar as 
not possessing the moral qualities that are conditio sine 
qua non for admission to the bar, in the interest of the 
community. 

I believe that the perjurer is a thousand times meaner 
than the thief, for the thief steals only trifles, but the 
perjurer saps the very foundation of civilization. |Where, 
as in the Grayson County Court, perjury is permitted to 
be plied readily, yielding to pressure without rupture of 
immoral influence, almost openly, without danger to the 
perjurer, justice is as a broken reed, and our constitution 
powerless for good — and as a spiritual life decays with a 
corresponding disregard of the high ideals of mankind, 
perjury grows apace among the legal profession in spite 
of its association with the church, proving the fact that 
Christianity, as taught in the Protestant church of the 
United States, does not prevent crimes, but furthers 
them among lawyers. 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur "Wehre. 



AGAINST, OUR CONSTITUTION 133 



ADDRESS TO HAMP P. ABNEY AND HASSELL, 
LAWYERS, AT SHERMAN, TEXAS. 

Ideally, corruption does not win more than honesty; 
but the most contemptible are always the most con- 
temptuous. Truth in common language is as suitable as 
the finest speech. 

Sirs: 

Where men are most sure and arrogant they are com- 
monly most mistaken. It is the mind that makes good 
or ill. The last perfection of our faculties is, that their 
activity, without ceasing to be sure and earnest, becomes 
sport. Your spontaneous impulses to act for your own 
good as fix-it-specialists manifest themselves in giving 
free course to the sport as wont, and face shows what 
it has done with these capabilities. Both of you made 
haste to get riches and honor, regardless of the means 
employed to reach that common end; you gained them 
on the false foundation of wrong and guilt. 

If it is true that true eloquence consists in saying all 
that is proper for the cause and no more, I shall not 
recount your misdeeds as lawyers ; they would fill a vol- 
ume ; but I will only say as much as I deem proper to say, 
that the people can well understand the cause, according 
to the principle that the plainest words are the most 
profitable oratory in a weighty matter. Veiling my face 
before your characters, I take the hand of Duty that 
leads me and follow her. 

It can be asserted that every man acts on his own risk 
when he willfully interferes with the personal affairs 
of another man, an unwarranted intrusion upon his pri- 



134 HIGH TREASON 

vacy. Experience will teach him how very dangerous 
such an interference sometimes may become. No good 
father of a household, who possesses self-respect, will 
allow any interference with his private and domestic 
arrangements or discipline by others. His domestic 
affairs are entirely his own and are not properly liable 
to any general inquisition in loco parentis et loco spon- 
soris; — a positive character is by nature difficult to deal 
with. 

It takes two persons to make a home, but only one to 
wreck it. All wrecked homes are due either to external 
invasion or internal commotion, or both. Only a rascal- 
adviser could whisper into the willing ear of my former 
wife that nothing is more wicked for a woman than to 
love her husband. If she had struck in her trouble an 
honest man as lawyer, he would have looked squarely into 
her face and answered her question with, i ' I should say, 
madam, that nothing is nobler, if you love your husband 
enough in the circumstance that eight children are herein 
concerned to live with him nobly as an example of Chris- 
tian charity and probity rather than from selfish aims to 
deceive him and persistently to undermine his authority 
as head of the family. In any honest business where you 
need legal advice consult me, but not in actions that are 
directly against law and equity.' ' 

To make twenty-five dollars "honestly" you, Hamp 
P. Abney and Hassell, disturbed the peace and the 
happiness of my family ten years ago with the effect that 
the parents are divorced and all confidence between one 
another of the eight children is gone, gone is all the do- 
mestic tranquility forever, there is no hope of reconcilia- 
tion. We cannot any more come together. The water of 
alienation, cunningly impounded by you, is much too 
deep. You, Hamp P. Abney and Hassel, practice the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 135 

functions of your profession as a butcher practices his 
trade. Your "justice" is but an instrument of greed, 
regardless of all consequences. The right of way is the 
boast of every grafter, of all wrong doing, of all anarchy ! 
That which is of supreme importance in life, the conquest 
of fear, pride and greed, the cultivation of simplicity, 
disinterestedness and noble thinking, neither of you have 
ever known. Your characters are not only written in 
your faces, expressed in conduct and language, but are 
set forth as a thought atmosphere, disagreeable for an 
honest soul to breathe, being full of microbes of foul 
deeds ; a state of mind that the Romans so characteristic- 
ally expressed, with the sentence, ' ' Hie niger est tu hunc 
Romane caveto, " " here is a black soul ; before this soul, 

Roman, be well on your guard.' ' 

Every reflective person must consider your official 
acts as representatives of the law, not only as disloyal 
to the principles of right and justice, but morally crim- 
inal acts, which have determined me to come to the de- 
fense of our statutes and of the independence of the 
people. I have these ten years past followed you with 
unceasing patience, as the shade follows the tree. First, 

1 would impeach you, at least Hassell, the ex-county 
judge, while holding office; but as I had ample sworn 
statements of your misconduct in office in hand that 
proved that both of you are malpractitioners, I deter- 
mined to arraign you. "When a man has nerve, energy, 
determination, intelligence and a will that is made of 
Vanadium steel, it is a very foolish thing for trouble to 
get in his road with the hope of stopping him. You and 
your accessories sab crimine will make that instructive 
discovery. 

No man ever committed a crime that he did not first 
act out in his mind ; no man ever did a deed of violence, 



136 HIGH TREASON 

no man ever killed another in the moment of madness, 
unless, or without, having previously seen himself act out 
the crime or tragedy before his mind's eye. So, when 
you had determined my assassination before I was sent 
to the insane asylum, you even had weighed up the con- 
sequences and pacified the would-be assassin by your as- 
surance that you should see to it that a few weeks in a 
reformatory would be the only consequence of a patri- 
cide. An accident frustrated the most dastardly crime 
that a human mind can frame, otherwise I should be 
rotten long ago, and should not perform my commission 
faithfully today as voluntary law-keeper, appointed 
thereto by "an unanimous vote," that I carry under my 
left coat pocket that covers my heart. 

Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, in history known 
as "the man of iron purpose,' ' was once asked why in 
his corpus juris he had not foreseen a penalty for patri- 
cide, answered : "I have revolved well that issue in my 
mind and have come to the conclusion that the possibil- 
ity that a son would kill his father would be such an 
enormous crime against nature that I could not perceive 
its possibility to happen, or if it should happen, I could 
not find the degree of punishment to avenge it." 

That I should not enforce the law of the country on 
you would show cowardice and ingratitude to the com- 
munity to which I have the privilege to belong, in 
timid, selfish abandonment of duty. Never! Fearless- 
ness is accounted the world over as one of the highest 
virtues and therefore the inalienable right of a man. Be- 
sides, I am not the man to sacrifice my own conception 
of right to professional criminals. By so doing I should 
renounce my highest ideals in allowing my own sense 
of justice to be violated by an injustice and thus dis- 
honor myself. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 137 

You, Hamp P. Abney and Hassell, are both as ambi- 
tious as your intelligence and your knowledge of the 
legal science is low. You, Hamp P. Abney, once ran for 
mayor of the City of Sherman on the platform of " de- 
cency,' ' therewith manifesting the fact that the only 
thing a man can lose without possessing it, is reason. 
Vultiis est index animi. Your countenance, as the index 
of your mind, was not considered to prove its bearer to 
be a gentleman of excellent acquirements, or to be re- 
sponsible to the extent of his engagements; therefore, 
you failed. Hassell, as acting county attorney, violated 
his oath of office, he induced jurors to violate their official 
oaths while in session with success; one of the jurors 
squealed and Hassell was forced at once to resign to avoid 
impeachment. You, Hamp P. Abney, had the ambition to 
run for the vacancy of the highest judgeship of the land, 
the Fifteenth Judicial District, caused by the resigna- 
tion of ' ' the most honorable ' ' judge, Ben L. Jones. The 
church and four hundred of its members were eager to 
hold the stirrup for you so you could alight with ease 
in the saddle of the judgeship, by sending a petition on 
the twenty-ninth of December, 1911, to the Governor, 
O. B. Colquitt, warmly recommending your appoint- 
ment. On the thirtieth of December, 1911, I sent a pro- 
test to the Governor against your appointment enclosing 
thirty sworn statements of official misconduct of that 
"nice, little, fine and prosperous law-firm Hamp P. Ab- 
ney and Hassell," as Charles Batsell had the audacity 
with flowery rhetoric in my sanity trial to cloak your 
lawless activities as representatives of the law. On the 
fourth of January, 1912, I received a letter from 0. B. 
Colquitt, in which he thanked me for my timely inter- 
vention, with the information that he had appointed 
for the judgeship in question the lawyer Mr. W. M. 



138 HIGH TREASON 

Peck, of Denison, expressing his hope that this appoint- 
ment would be satisfactory to myself and to all the in- 
habitants of Grayson County. My objection against 
your appointment to a judgeship for which you possess 
neither the intelligence, the learning, nor the moral qual- 
ity acted as a wet blanket on your overheated brain, 
lowering its temperature to normal. 

Here I feel it my duty to say that 0. B. Colquitt was 
not only the most able, but the most willing, Governor 
that ever occupied the executive chair, who was con- 
scious of his first and foremost duty to remain loyal to 
the state's own peculiar functions as guardian and pro- 
moter of all its higher interests. He honestly tried to 
do the right thing for the best interests of the country ; 
but the most foul combination of legal profession and 
church in their systematized high treason against our 
constitution tied the hands and feet of an able and hon- 
est representative of the people in a way that frustrated 
all his manly efforts to do right. I have not the honor 
personally to know the Honorable 0. B. Colquitt. My 
judgment as to his capability is based on facts and is 
therefore unbiased. I learn that he is a candidate for 
the Federal Senate and the people should gratefully 
recognize his good will, proved as Governor, to serve 
them honestly, by sending him as their representative 
at Washington. 

Hamp P. Abney! on the first of January, 1906, you 
misled my former wife and my oldest minor son to a 
shameless fraud on me, taking a farm of one hundred 
and seventy-five acres of land out of my hands, thus rob- 
bing my other seven children of their rights to this 
farm in turning it over to one. On the 29th of February, 
1912, while testifying to my insanity you boasted that 
you had " worked the Denison Bank and Trust Com- 



'AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 139 

pany" to make the mentioned fraud possible. If stu- 
pidity indeed is bliss, Hamp P. Abney, I have decided 
that you must be extremely lucky. Your statement un- 
der oath is of great value to me. 

No contract for the sale of land or real estate can be 
enforced unless the title is clear of all encumbrances. 
In your hurry to perform the act you neglected the pre- 
scribed form to make this transaction legal and there- 
fore it is null and void. In order to safeguard against 
forgery the state requires all deeds and abstracts con- 
veying land to be acknowledged by the one conveying 
the land before a notary public or another officer desig- 
nated by law, and said officer is required to certify in 
writing that the instrument has been acknowledged by 
the writer before him. You are a shyster of a lawyer. 
As soon as I learned the enormous fraud, cunningly im- 
posed upon me, I foreclosed the deed and brought suit 
for trespass to try title. All your efforts, assisted by 
the lawless element of the court, aimed, to hinder the 
trial of the case, and you have succeeded therein for ten 
long years. You govern the whole judiciary from the 
district judges, the district and county clerks, down to 
the deputy sheriff and the jailer. Abusus non tollit 
usum, i. e. : that a thing is sometimes abused is no reason 
for giving up its legitimate use. I am entitled that my 
rights receive the same treatment as others — and I am 
going to get them. 

The woman in question got bitings of her conscience 
and stings of regret about her shameless disloyalty to 
her husband and told you her tribulations. Whereupon 
you haughtily replied: "If he objects, we shall make him 
crazy and send him to the Old Reliable Bug-house at 
Terrell/ ' You have succeeded in that, Hamp P. Ab- 
ney, I have occupied this madhouse fifty months. The 



140 HIGH TREASON 

act of my misled former wife was straightforward, ab- 
solutely in contradiction to the highest family morality 
and the sacred matrimonial relations with the effect that 
I am as lonely today as a deserted old man can be. 
There was no use to struggle against the inevitable. One 
hope after another had to be given up day after day. 
I earnestly tried to do in my situation what was right. It 
was a hard sorrowful struggle before divorce was con- 
templated. The average man who applies for a divorce 
signs his plea with his heart's blood; this is also true 
for the average woman, who asks for a divorce. It takes 
a mighty force to make a man, once married, divorce a 
woman he has once loved, no matter what her faults are, 
or how much she may have wronged him. Many things 
of ommission and commission a man is willing to forgive 
a woman, but the last thing that a self-respecting man is 
likely to pardon is intellectual disloyalty on her part. 
The very moment when my former wife had deserted 
her post of duty in giving way to your spiritual influ- 
ence and perversity, decided shipwreck for me and 
ruined my life. I stood before an abyss of misery with 
no alternative but to face it bravely. There is no end 
of trouble in a family that has two heads. There is 
neither expediency and justice, nor prosperity and peace 
in such a family. In a family where there is no love, 
sympathy and understanding between man and wife, 
there is no fatherhood and no motherhood. The matri- 
monial life turns to poison and the hearts of the chil- 
dren are frightened by it. It would have been a great 
mistake to continue to go on living together. It would 
have meant for me a bitter life that would have nibbled 
away my sinking energy to a pitiful extent. It could 
not be helped by continuing it; a fact is a fact, and 
most of the trouble of life comes from the refusal to 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 141 

recognize this truth. I had the courage to refuse to 
continue it, no matter what it cost me. 

Families rise, and families deteriorate, but what is 
more pathetic than a family of ten heads that is broken 
and severed from old bonds and vows ? What a travesty 
is marriage which does not make the sweetness of daily 
life for the development and exploitations of the state ? 
The man who wants to get rid of his wife, forces her to 
divorce him, and he gets all the sympathy of the people 
for it. I brought suit for divorce and thereby gave sub- 
stantial proof of my appreciation of her right to happi- 
ness. My former wife had struck at my honor, my 
peace of mind, and all that a man of my character and 
sensibility holds dear. She dragged my name in court 
and mire, and leaves her lawyers the heritage of their 
own shame. The very care I take to keep my name stain- 
less, with some, is evidence of shame. I was the last that 
would hold her to an agreement that she no longer had 
the heart to fulfill. To marry is a very serious and im- 
portant thing, which should not end in a divorce! I 
still hold my head high, what 'ere the wizard says, the 
dust-born son, without disgrace, may wear the seal of 
human error on his forehead. 

Before I brought suit for divorce, I made you, as her 
counsel, the most honest proposition, willing to give her 
a hundred acres of land, under the condition that she 
plead guilty for divorce, and that it should take place 
before the Honorable Judge Pearson of McKinney, to 
avoid any notoriety. You laughed at my proposition 
and said, "We will take the whole thing and send him to 
the poor-house. " My poor misled children, who did not 
understand the seriousness of the situation, lauded you 
as "the smartest and biggest lawyer in North Texas.' ' 
You fixed the matter m your way so that it was a sue- 



142 HIGH TREASON 

cess ; you brought a cross bill to my suit. A false story 
of my mistreatment was written, and after reading it 
my wife was coerced into telling it to the jury. This 
story is so incredible, so absurd, so inconsistent with all 
the facts, that one wonders that the jury or anyone could 
believe a word of it. In spite of all this, my former wife 
declared on the witness stand that she did not wish to be 
divorced ! 

Before the trial you had consoled her in the presence 
of two of my sons by the information that you had bribed 
the jurymen ; they were all your friends and would give 
her the right for divorce. The "most honorable" 
Judge, Ben L. Jones, she received her divorce, against 
her protest. You wrote the judgment in the case, therein 
disposing of my property after your heart's desire, in 
contradiction to law and equity. I at once appealed. 
The suits that followed the lawless actions committed by 
you and Judge Jones have been illegally and wrongfully 
dismissed during my incarceration in the Madhouse, by 
the Honorable Judge, W. E. Peck, from lack of sin- 
cerity, honesty, rectitude and ability on his part. The 
higher the rank, the less the pretense, because there is 
less to pretend to. Judge Peck had played his part in 
the crime committed on me and was well posted in my 
affairs. You very well knew that your rascality would 
be made known before the Supreme Court in trying my 
appeal. I should have demanded from the Supreme 
Court to exercise its power, or refer facts and evidences 
to another duly constituted court, charged with the du- 
ties in respect thereof, that you and your law partner 
be disbarred for willful and corrupt conduct in office, 
for high crimes and misdemeanors. To turn the rascals 
out of our courts must be the first and chief diversion 
of a good citizen, which I claim to be, from a keener 



AGAINST. OUE CONSTITUTION 143 

interest in our fundamentals. Knowing this, you fixed 
the matter and sent me to the madhouse, giving testi- 
mony under oath of my insanity, contrary to your knowl- 
edge of the opposite, a crime premeditated years ago. 

While in jail, held there for trial, a man was brought 
in accused of theft. The man did not impress me as a 
professional thief, but as a man whose daily meals were 
mighty poor. He avoided coming in contact with the 
other inmates. Motionlessly he sat on the iron bench, 
staring before him. His imprisonment had deprived him 
of all spirit and courage. I do not know his name ; it is 
against good deportment in jail to ask a man his name. 
Some friends of the man came, and from the tale the man 
told to his visitors showed that he had misappropriated 
two bales of hay from the railroad yard, lying there 
when he passed them with his team and wagon. The hay 
was taken away from him and he was arrested for theft. 
He was not brought before the next magistrate to answer 
the accusation, as the law provides, but put in prison — to 
be palled, as the officers quote that action — and that man 
was pulled pretty hard! The next day of his incar- 
ceration, you, Hamp P. Abney, arrived as his angel of 
deliverance. You told him what a crime he had com- 
mitted, that he inevitably had to go to the penitentiary 
for a long term, as our laws are very strict. When the 
man after this information stared at the iron floor in 
despair, you added, "For One Hundred Dollars I can 
fix it so the case will be dismissed." At once life came 
into the man, and he spoke eagerly to you, assuring you 
that the price you charged was very reasonable and that 
he would pay you the Hundred Dollars. The question 
when and how he should pay it was cautiously set — 
CASH. The telephone rang and his friends were called 
to jail. They appeared and furnished the money. I 



144 HIGH TREASON 

asked the man coming back from the consultation what 
he had agreed with yon. He told me what I here state, 
and when I reproached your charge, calling you a legal 
shark, he added, "I should have paid him two hundred 
before I bring to my children the disgrace to be sent to 
the penitentiary." Two days later the man was released 
from jail with the decision of the court nolle pros. A 
wise decision, because there was nothing to prosecute. 

The fact in the case is that the man had picked up 
two bales of hay lying on the ground, and that the owner 
of these bales claimed them as his bales and received 
them back. The act was neither theft nor conversion 
nor any offense, but the attempt to appropriate them, 
an act which was not punishable. It was a finding, and 
the owner of the objects claimed the finding and received 
it. It was a very small offense of the man in giving 
way to the temptation to furnish his poor team a full 
meal of hay, without expense to him. Even Mr. Honest 
once stole a swine, Hamp P. Abney! but it was an out- 
rage, a theft and a usury of the worst kind for you to 
»rob, under misrepresentation of the law, and defraud 
that poor man of One Hundred Dollars, to satisfy your 
greed. I consider the man a good patriot, because he 
had six children and a wife, who all must suffer a long 
time to pay you that blood money that your greed 
demanded. A lawyer who is a false prophet of the legal 
truth is a consummate scoundrel. Hamp P. Abney, in 
accordance with your misconception of right and wrong, 
I am sure that the same day, at your leisure time, you 
collected money for the Methodist Church, running from 
house to house, as the lumberman, Wilson, told me that 
you frequently do. Hamp P. Abney, the church is not in 
the act of starvation ; she has plenty ; you ought to help 
the poor instead of robbing them. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 145 

Lawyer Hassell, to serve the "system" and your own 
interests, you swore on the witness stand that I had writ- 
ten a letter to the President — charging this action of a 
citizen as a symptom of his insanity. I have not written 
to the President; your statement was untrue, and there- 
fore a perjury. But suppose it was true, what is there in 
reason and propriety to prevent a citizen of the United 
States from writfng to the President ? What is the dif- 
ference between a spoken and a written word, what is 
the difference between a letter written from me to the 
President and the visit of J. P. Morgan in the White 
House ? You demanded from Cal Freeman to add to the 
verdict of the jury " insanity/ ' the words "Not safe at 
large"; and you knew perfectly that whenever the legal 
profession speaks of a man as "dangerous, not safe at 
large," he is not a menace to society, but a menace to 
the legal profession. 

You, Hamp P. Abney and Hassell, habituated your- 
selves to the distortion of truth and the exaltation of 
injustice so that you hardly know right from wrong. 
Guilty of willful perjury, you must never be able to 
vote and shall forever be disqualified as witnesses. That 
you have wittingly violated civil, moral and ethic laws, 
in letter and spirit, is undeniable, undoubted, and abhor- 
rent to my knowledge of the subject and my sense of 
patriotism. You are an eating cancer on the body of a 
noble profession; you must be cut from it, being its 
shame. You must be dismissed forever from the bench 
and bar in the United States in utmost disgrace. It will 
be no profanation of the legal profession to get disposed 
of you. Each one of you, conscious of being endowed 
with "a brain infallible" and "a comprehension of awe- 
some magnitude," believed you could easily commit all 
sorts of crimes and go unpunished. To attain this end, 



146 HIGH TREASON 

you sent a sane man for safekeeping to a madhouse for 
fifty long months, successfully to cloak your acts of ras- 
cality in office, known to him, in order to prevent him 
from exposing you ; a premeditated, diabolical scheme, a 
dastardly crime, and a most nefarious act. You thought 
you had conquered your victim, but in this you and your 
accessories sub-crimine are seriously mistaken. Fair wis- 
dom is not reflected in betraying one 's honor and interest 
by putting up a false bill of attainder. Your fault is 
want of heart or want of thought, most likely both, and 
the result is ' ' infamy, ' ' a disillusioning of the admiration 
of one hundred thousand church members as to your fair- 
ness, contrary to our federal laws, whose violation should 
mean a long term in a Federal Penitentiary. 
In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 

ADDRESS TO THE EX-COUNTY JUDGE, 
J. Q. ADAMSON. 

False freedom of mind and great confidence of one's 
self is very contrary to heavenly visitation. 

Sir: 

Ipse dixit (that means, he himself said it), that the 
right way to do the wrong thing is to do it and keep 
still. Your principle, J. Q. Adamson, is the principle 
of highwaymen, with the recommendation not to squeal. 
The highwayman is at least honest enough to confess 
that he is a highwayman. You are dishonest, you wore 
a sheep's skin, the robe of a judge, and underneath this 
honorable robe was a wolf and a thief. You have in 
office feloniously taken public money. You knew exactly 
that you had no right thereto, but acted after your prin- 
ciple, "The right way to do the wrong thing is to do it 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 147 

and keep still." Suppose you did not know the seventh 
commandment, you must know, as judge, Ignorantia legis 
neminem excusat — that means, "Ignorance of the law 
excuses no one." You would never have been held re- 
sponsible for your theft, if someone had not reported the 
fact to the grand jury. You know as well as I do that 
our grand jury is a dependency of the County Attorney. 
Your infamy must have been so gross that the County 
Attorney, Cal Freeman's tyranny, had not the courage 
to prevent the denunciation. The grand jury indicted 
you twice for felony. There was no way to save you 
from the penitentiary, facts are stubborn things, except 
Cal Freeman's illegal act to dismiss your cases, thereby 
transgressing his rights, an illegal action that needs only 
to be reported to the Attorney General of Texas — and, 
J. Q. Adamson, you are on trial for felony ! ! 

Any poor negro who would have acted as you have done 
would have been sent to the penitentiary for a long term. 
He would have at least the excuse of his poverty to miti- 
gate his crime; you received as judge a very good and 
sufficient salary for your service from the people, so that 
want could not induce you to steal their money, but 
greed. So well paid is the position of a County Judge 
as to induce men of high character and large abilities 
in the matter of competence for such service to under- 
take it. We, in Grayson County, seem to have no peni- 
tentiary for thieves who wear the honor robe of a judge 
or the gown of an advocate, for the reason that we lack 
the broad humanitarian view that the other civilized 
nations possess, who send a judge or another highly 
esteemed man that corruptly used their position to a 
penitentiary to be reformed, in order to prevent rotten- 
ness of judiciary and downright anarchy. 

In my sanity trial you denied me all bills of right and 



148 HIGH TREASON 

were guilty of maladministration of justice. You acted 
in the service, and as an accomplice, of that foul-minded 
clique that sent me to the madhouse. During my incar- 
ceration you had repeatedly given to Dr. George F. 
Powell the order never to let me out. Dr. Powell has 
told me this fact. On the 22nd of March, 1912, you 
came to the jail personally to escort me to the Asylum. 
I asked you if you had the legal writ for my admission 
with you, and you deliberately lied in saying "Yes." 
After we arrived at Terrell you had a long talk with 
Dr. George F. Powell, recommending me to his special 
care and attention, as you assured me before you left me. 
This long interview on my behalf with this foul-minded 
physician, more than anything, illuminates the frame-up 
illegally and wrongfully to deprive me of my liberty for 
fifty months. My admission to the madhouse was not an 
orderly, lawful and righteous delivery of an ill person 
to a hospital for relief, but a delivery for imprisonment. 
That white slip of paper that you handed to Dr. Powell 
for my admission was a fraud, as the contestant named 
thereupon is a person who does not exist and conse- 
quently never testified. You are a shameless imposter: 
in my eyes a criminal. Dr. Powell knew very well that 
the action was not in law; therefore he did not testify 
to my acceptance as a patient, as his duty is, which cer- 
tificate must be returned to the county clerk, as part 
of the record in the case. No such record exists. "What 
do you care for the statute of the State ? Not a straw. 
The lawless element of the legal profession thus governs 
the land, not our statute ! Your action, as County Judge, 
suspends reason and imperils the very foundation of 
orderly government. 

J. Q. Adamson, you are guilty of a most shameful 
betrayal of public trust. The fact is that your misdeeds 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 149 

as Judge are a tort, a gross violation of the ordinary 
human customs of civilization, which must result in re- 
storative consequences, as deserving punishment to cor- 
rect the wrong. If you were held responsible in the court 
and at the bar of public opinion as to how you discharged 
your trust, you would be charged with great dereliction 
of duty and a breach of trust that was criminal in its 
fruit, and you know it ! Your face and the shy side 
glances of your eyes give the impression that you expect 
every moment that someone would step from behind, tap 
your shoulder, and say, l ' Come with me. ' ' You should be 
disbarred forever from practicing the law in the United 
States as not possessing the good moral character that is 
conditio sine qua mm for admission to the bar, in the 
interest of the community. 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowtty Zub Wehre. 



TO THE EX-DISTRICT JUDGE, BEN L. JONES, 
SHERMAN. 

Thought without reverence is barren — for the slug- 
gards the laurels never grow ! 

Sir: 

An office is not an honor because a man fills it, but it 
is only an honor when he fills it honorably. It is not a 
charge of the Court that injures the country where the 
criminals reside, but the charge of the man who violated 
the law — who did the injury. It is not the publication 
of wrong that injures the country, it is the doing of 
wrong of men in public office that injures and ruins the 
country. 

In my judgment, there is no higher court in the State 



150 HIGH TREASON 

than the District Court, because of the importance of 
the service that shall be rendered by this court to the 
people, and in the service that it renders it is funda- 
mental to secure the true elements of progress in the 
community and guard its undisputed ascendancy over 
the spirit of corruption and decay. The Supreme Court 
is higher in name, but it is not higher in fact. The 
Supreme Court is a court of review, except where a case 
is tried on an agreed statement of facts ; then the appeal 
court is as competent to consider such facts and apply 
the law as the district court, in rendering such judgment 
as the trial court should have rendered. 

Ben L. Jones, if negligence is a failure to exercise the 
degree of care that a man of ordinary prudence would 
exercise in his position of a judge, you have not shown 
yourself to be worthy of your commission. You have 
not exercised reasonable care in executing the rules and 
regulations of the law, the very foundation of an orderly 
government. To serve the special interests of Hamp P. 
Abney and Hassell you became the enthusiastic advo- 
cate of their foul deeds, ignoring your solemn obligation 
to respect and uphold the ordained process of legislation 
and administration. You practiced absolutism in official 
acts by false decrees. Public servants who thus demon- 
strate their unfitness to honor out their commission and 
still hold their place, is a state of affairs that is in essence 
irreconcilable with any rational definition of democracy 
and good government. I shall honestly and in good faith 
face the situation with determination to hinder you from 
doing further wrong in public service, by trying to take 
this office out of your reach. 

In my divorce suit you asked my former wife if she 
wanted to be divorced, and she answered, ' ' No, I do not. 
After this remark it was your duty as judge at once to 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 151 

dismiss the cross-bill that Hamp P. Abney and Hassell 
had presented to the court. You failed therein. You 
did not instruct the jury that the defendant could not 
get a divorce from her statement on the witness stand. 
Thus she got divorced in your court, where you presided, 
against her protest, violating your sacred duty to veto 
the verdict of a jury if rendered against the evidence in 
the case. The judgment in the divorce case was not writ- 
ten by you, but by Hamp P. Abney and Hassell, dispos- 
ing of my homestead in her favor without any right 
thereto. You must know as a district judge that a 
woman who abandons her husband, leaving his home- 
stead for many years, has forfeited all and every right 
to that homestead, leaving it undivided to him. I have 
worked hard with clean hands all my life and do not 
deserve that the burden of haunting fear of an old age 
of undeserved great poverty and misery stares me in the 
face. I appealed the case at once. It was your functus 
officio as trial judge to declare that the judgment stays 
till the case is decided by the higher courts. Hamp P. 
Abney and Hassell gave order to the sheriff to execute the 
judgment. On the 25th of September, 1911, I presented 
to you a petition personally wherein I called your atten- 
tion to the law that provides that judgments in appeal 
have to stay till the final decree is rendered in the case 
by the higher court, whereupon you wrote with your own 
hand, on the petition, "The judgment has to be carried 
out." 

In my appeal you ignored the mandates of the higher 
court and I was forced to present the fact to the Court 
of Civil Appeals, which decided to send the records as 
they were to try the case on its merits. You induced or 
allowed the stenographer, Sam Davis, to falsify the offi- 
cial stenographic records. I charge you with imposing 



152 HIGH TREASON 

unlawful punishment on me for contempt of court in the 
case to disbar Hamp P. Abney and Hassell from practic- 
ing the law before your court. That you suspended the 
sentence does not alter the fact of a false punishment. 
As Judge you have closed both eyes to the official mis- 
conduct of Hamp P. Abney and Hassell, if you have not 
been particeps criminis in a high degree in their crimes, 
you have been guilty of flagrant negligence of your duty 
as guardian of the law, effectively to protect me against 
those crimes, a shocking scandal for a district judge. 
You made oppressive and corrupt use of your official 
position in deciding unjustly in favor of your former law 
partners. It was oppressive conduct in entertaining mat- 
ters of my appeal beyond your jurisdiction, thus defying 
the mandates of the higher court. With all those acts 
you have sufficiently proved that you do not possess that 
good moral character that is conditio sine qua non for 
admission to the bar, and therefore you should be dis- 
barred from practicing law, in the interest of the com- 
munity. 

On the first of January, 1912, I wrote you a regis- 
tered letter, demanding your resignation from running 
for a seat in Congress, charging you to be guilty of intel- 
lectual dishonesty. If you did not withdraw, I added, 
I should throw my gauntlet at your feet, to be picked 
up — that means in public discussion to object against 
your taking a seat in Congress. Your brother-in-law, 
J. Q. Adamson, secretly and sneakingly picked up my 
gauntlet for you — and sent me to an Insane Asylum for 
fifty months, to save your seat in Congress. 
With due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 






AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 153 



TO MR. WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE WILSON 
LUMBER COMPANY, SHERMAN. 

Experientia docet stultos, i. e., Experience teaches even 
a fool. 

Sir: 

You are a man in good financial circumstances and of 
high social standing, a respected person in the Sherman 
community. A short time before I was sent to the Insane 
Asylum you were foreman of the grand jury. I consid- 
ered you as such a person, from the marrow a democrat 
of the kind that subtle Greeks with nicety defined, "the 
people's highest concept of a man, most independent of 
the sons of earth, who would accept no truth untried 
by reason, ' ' ever ready to use your exalted judicial posi- 
tion with wisdom to succor your f ellowmen, the finest of 
fine things ! ! — How man can err ! 

I paid you a personal visit in your business office, 
asking you if you were willing to assist me in disbarring 
some lawyers from the Grayson County Court. You 
assured me that if there was cause you would do your 
duty. I handed you a roll of papers with the request 
to read its contents and then return it to me. The next 
morning I again called on you, received the papers in 
question, with your confession that you had read them 
with interest, giving me the advice to come and present 
my claims to the grand jury. I appeared before the 
grand jury in session. You said: "We have no time for 
you; come this afternoon." I came in the afternoon. 
You said : ' ' We have no time for you ; come tomorrow. ' ' 
I came the next day. You again advised me to come in 
the afternoon. The answer that I received on my in- 



154 HIGH TREASON 

quiries from the doorkeeper that afternoon, if the grand 
jury was busy, was: "No, they have nothing to do; go 
in, Mr. Dignowity." I entered the grand jury room, 
whereupon you said to me: " We have no time for you ; 
we are busy." I modestly replied that the doorkeeper 
had assured me of just the contrary, urging me to come 
before you. You blushed over and over, therewith accus- 
ing yourself of having deliberately lied. — I could not get 
a hearing before the grand jury ! 

Our grand jury is not a sovereignty, but a dependency 
of the legal profession and church. It is a registry office 
where the cases suitable for the county attorney are set, 
whose main occupation is the prosecution of violations of 
prohibition laws in servitude of the church; all other 
cases receive little attention. Therefore our grand jury 
has always with it the representative of the county 
attorney, as the watchful waiter of the church, who keeps 
her eyes open and sees to it that none of her lambs stray 
from the fold and bite the hand that is feeding them. 
The partiality which consists in remaining silent in the 
presence of crime from fear or interest is a false concep- 
tion of the foreman of the grand jury, exposing him 
who practices this dangerous idea, to the gravest danger. 
To this danger you have given way. The plot won you 
as witness against my sanity and you swore falsely as 
to my sanity. You swore falsely on the witness chair that 
I had said the United States Government was ' ' a rotten 
system." I have not said that, but — it is no secret to a 
reflective person that the United States Government has 
expended hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars 
in the River and Harbor Bill without achieving any- 
thing worth while of this enormous expenditure. Frankly 
and openly is this bill called by the United States sena- 
tors and representatives the "Pork Barrel," therewith, I 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 155 

surmise, to feed suckers of politicians out of public 
means, not only securing them "to make an honest liv- 
ing," but "to acquire riches from lack of control of the 
United States Government faithfully expressed, I should 
say, by fraud and stealing/ ' This "extravagance" and 
"waste" of the United States Government with people's 
money is not only most shameful, but scandalous. No 
reasoning person can assume that because this branch 
of the United States Government seems to be rotten from 
top to bottom, therefore the other branches of the ad- 
ministration must be patterns of correctness of economy 
and efficiency. 

There is no question in the mind of those familiar with 
the facts that through political channels the Government 
— that is, the people who pay the taxes — is annually 
robbed by corporations of many million dollars. The 
renowned machine gun in use in the United States army 
weighs 32 pounds and is said to cost $1,200 purchased 
from private factories. Any man who is a judge of arms 
knows that a machine gun weighing 32 pounds, with a 
tripod to hold it up, is worth about $65 to $70. No one 
cares except interested patriotic politicians, whose prin- 
ciple is Ubi bene ibi patria (where I make a good living, 
there I stay). They obscure the issue in grandiloquent 
phrases to explain away or cloak the disagreeable facts. 
Our national defense after Woodrow Wilson's fashion, 
called "preparedness for trouble and unrest of the peo- 
ple, "obviously consists in appropriation bills not in being. 

United States Senator Aldrich eight years ago declared 
that by a businesslike administration of all governmental 
branches $300,000,000 annually could be saved. This 
was at a time when the annual budget was $954,496,000. 
Today its budget amounts to $2,231,055,000. If in our 
present administration prevail the same conditions that 



156 HIGH TREASON 

Senator Aldrich blamed, the United States Government 
wastes annually $700,000,000 of the people's money. 

To call this state of affairs in the United States Gov- 
ernment "a rotten system' ' is false. With "corrup- 
tion," "anarchy," and maladministration the language 
would be more correct, distinctly and appropriately sym- 
bolizing the thing in question. Your conduct obviously 
was narrow and mean, unconscious that the day was sure 
to come when the piper must be paid for the dance. 
You will bear the consequences of your light-mindedness. 
In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur "Wehre. 



TO THE EX-SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT OF 
GRAYSON COUNTY, MR. SUMMERVILLE. 

Age quod agis, i. e., Do what you do carefully ! 

Sir: 

A man of your education and your connection with 
moral institutions is assumed to know the ten command- 
ments, conscious that the breaking of one of them is 
infamy. 

I charge you of being guilty of infamy. You violated 
the eighth commandment, that reads, "Thou shalt not 
bear false witness against thy neighbor. ' ' 

As church member you considered it your foremost 
duty to assist a mean plot of lawyers to send me to an 
Insane Asylum, therefore you willfully swore falsely as 
to my sanity. Shame to say that the ex-Superintendent 
Summerville of the schools of Grayson County is an 
uncommon perjurer, destitute of any rectitude. 

Every psychologist recognizes the fact that the for- 
mation of habits is a process that is recorded into the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 157 

tissues of the brain. By this habit-forming process the 
moral law has been engraved upon the brain of man. 
Philosophy cannot and will not obscure this scientific 
truth, which is known and recognized by the ordinary 
man from experiences of his daily life. The office of 
our School Superintendent is in the court house. Your 
intercourse with misrepresentatives of the law, going in 
and out there daily, spoiled your morals in a way to make 
you a criminal yourself. Every reasonable man should 
be willing to bear the consequences of his acts; he who 
will not do that, is unreasonable and must be forced 
thereto. In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



TO THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, GEORGE F. 
FRENCH, DENISON. 

Virtus in actione consistit, i. e., Virtue consists in action. 

Sir: 

In the fall of 1911 I brought a suit against the Denison 
Compress Company, alleging it willfully and maliciously 
to have changed the label on a bale of cotton that desig- 
nated me as the owner. My opponent in the suit was 
the lawyer, W. M. Peck, of Denison. In the first trial 
he failed to appear. I let it go. In the second trial, 
the 20th of January, 1912, he again failed to appear. 
I showed you a decision of the Supreme Court wherein 
it was stated that a judge of the Justice of the Peace 
Court, on demand of plaintiff, is compelled to render 
final judgment against defendant in cases of a second 
default on his part to appear in Court. You refused 
to carry out the decision of the Supreme Court, and 
said : ' * I shall not render the judgment ; you cannot ex- 



158 HIGH TREASON 

pect me to give a judgment against a lawyer who is to 
be a district judge tomorrow." I appealed the case in 
the County Court. The County Clerk and his deputies 
refused to file the suit. I mandamused them in the 
County Court of J. Q. Adamson. Judge J. Q. Adam- 
son refused to act. I mandamused him in the district 
court of Ben L. Jones. I do not know whether this judge 
did his duty. I was sent to the Insane Asylum. But I 
do know that the suit in question has not been filed yet 
in the Grayson County Court. 

I learn that you are running for re-election as Judge 
of the Justice of the Peace Court and wish that you 
would withdraw from that race. Should the legal ma- 
chinery and the church secure your re-election I shall 
disqualify you from any judgeship forever. We need 
a good man for that judgeship, who acts independently 
of "the system,' ' and you are not that man who would 
faithfully perform his duty. One bad deed points the 
way for another ! Your illegal decision as judge in my 
case gives proof that our judiciary is rotten from the 
bottom up. In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 

TO THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, C. A. BARKER, 
SHERMAN. 

Hie et ubique, i. e., As it is here, so is it there, so is it 

everywhere in the United States. 
Sir: 

Many times I have tried to collect the judgment against 
J. P. Ball. Every time the order came back with the 
statement from the sheriff that the defendant was 
"insolvent." A few weeks before I was sent to the 
madhouse, I had given a new order for collection. Being 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 159 

in the Asylum, where I was hindered from the convey- 
ance of any communication to the outside world, I could 
not learn what had become of my order. Returning to 
society from the madhouse, I called on the county clerk 
for information in the case and received from the county 
clerk, Mr. Reeves, in a written statement, the following 
transcript of the record: Paid by the lawyer, Barker, 
in the judgment against J. P. Ball to the Court, 11/15/13 
—$200.00. Paid to the lawyer, C. A. Barker, from the 
Court, 11/15/13— $150.00, for his services to collect it. 
Paid to my former wife, 11/15/13— $50.00. Paid to the 
Court by my former wife, $40.50 plus $9.05. After this 
statement my former wife received from the total amount 
of a collection of $246.00 the amount of forty-five cents 
as her part of the half of this community property. 

You, C. A. Barker, had made an agreement with her, 
assisted therein by Hamp P. Abney, to receive for your 
services to collect this $246.00, one-half. The cost of the 
suit in the amount of $100.00 had to be paid by J. P. Ball, 
not by my former wife. He had paid $39.00 ; the rest is 
unpaid. I asked you to kindly pay me my part of this 
judgment with interest for fifteen years, amounting to 
$142.75. You refused to do it. I have brought suit against 
you in the justice of the peace court of Mr. Wilson, of 
Sherman. After the judgment is rendered I shall try to 
disbar you from practicing the law as not possessing the 
good moral character that is conditio sine qua non for 
admission to the bar. Your action is fraud, defined of 
taking undue advantage of a Feme Sole, in an illegal and 
unfair way, a real thievery. It is my conviction that the 
morals of a highwayman are those of an angel in com- 
parison with yours. 

Willfully, maliciously and systematically to promote 
the most appalling lawlessness, all the while deeming 



160 HIGH TREASON 

and bearing themselves as most cultured and gentle, is 
a striking instance of the obtuse conscience and lack of 
moral sense of most of the legal profession in the Grayson 
County Court. Expressed correctly, I should say, foul- 
mindedness and perversity in spite of their open ad- 
herence to the church. Our courthouse must become an 
orderly and decent house in which men of your kind 
have nothing to do. 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



TO THE HONORABLE DISTRICT JUDGE, 
W. M. PECK, SHERMAN. 

Absit invidia, i. e. no offense is intended. 

My Dear Judge : 

You are an old man. I do not wish to hurt you. 
You are on the bar about fifty years. After human 
conception you must be in a financial condition that 
allows you to live in ease without care for the few 
days of your life that nature still has in store for you. 
To my surprise I learn that you suffer from the ambition 
for re-election to the judgeship of the fifteenth judicial 
district. I beg you heartily to change your mind and 
withdraw from the race. You urgently need a rest, 
Grayson County urgently needs a good, honest, active, 
progressive and independent judge, two indisputable 
reasons for your withdrawal. 

Should you be re-elected with the help of the " legal 
system," assisted by the church, you would put me to 
the grave necessity to incept your resignation in the 
interest of the country. In the hope that my stern and 
austere features do not mislead you to the perception 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 161 

that I am a joker, I am, with personal kind regards and 
assurances of best wishes, 

Sincerely yours, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



CHARLES CRENSHAW, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, 
SHERMAN, TEXAS. 

Libel-lac slops the people to speak public mind as they 

should speak it. 
Sir: 

Do you not think that calling the man publicly to 
respond is the simplest way to avoid a libel suit? For 
the mind which professes only common sense, it will not 
be difficult to conceive it of any reason whatever why 
that is not a legitimate and constitutional function, 
supposing the challenger has a stimulating way of 
putting things, distinct reasoning power, and ability to 
speak in the vernacular so that a man can get at exactly 
what he means. Whether there is that common sense in 
the legal profession on the Grayson County Bench and 
Bar, I do not pretend to know; but its attitude of 
shyness seems to indicate very plainly that its members 
are not resolved to entertain a plea whose logical conclu- 
sion is that there are certain methods of criminality that 
are too subtle and elusive to be dealt with by any power 
existing in our system of government — being inclined 
to imitate a wise man for saying nothing. They avoid 
reasoning, not from modesty on their part, but from 
other reasons ! 

I know with certainty you neither respect my opinion, 
nor do you listen to my arguments. I do not care for 
that. I am the sole proprietor of myself. I hold my 
ground and I push hard perseveringly in one direction, 



162 HIGH TREASON 

that is, to remove lawless men or hold back from them 
the Grayson County Bench and Bar. 

With a definite initiative and unceasing persistency 
I shall employ those measures which I consider suitable 
for the purpose intended. I shall even be harsh to 
the good people of Grayson County, self-explanatory 
in an entirely proper manner, if they should not be 
willing to yield to the cause of law and order in our 
community. I know perfectly the difference between 
slander and rebuke, and no rebuff whatever will dis- 
hearten me from faith in the inevitable ultimate triumph 
of right and truth. I know that the progress and free- 
dom of a people come only by struggle, thru education 
and agitation. 

We are in search of men for public service who have 
optimism and the gift of real spiritual insight. We are 
in search of complete men, whose lives are not dwarfed 
by petty defects, men who are trained in every way for 
their task. From a county attorney, for instance, we 
expect in his vocational life the efficiency of a trained 
mind and an enlightened conscience. 

Texas desires that every office of the country, the most 
modest as well as the highest, should be conscientiously 
served by those to whom the offices have been confided, 
and expects from the Governor, like any other official, to 
carry out fully and without fail the duties which fall to 
his lot. Unfortunately, by our own guilt, we have 
reached a situation in this country where a public officer, 
whether Governor, Attorney General or County Attor- 
ney, who goes out of the beaten path and uses his power 
faithfully in enforcing law in an effective and continu- 
ous manner, is regarded as a striking exception, a special 
benefactor, and a blessing to the people. 

Crenshaw ! I knew that you were in the race for the 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 163 

position of County Atttorney. I asked myself: Quo 
jure ? i. e., By what right ? Privilege, of course, the only 
reason was because you had no idea that honesty is be- 
fore honor. As this is the land of the free and the home 
of the brave, I enjoy the right to my opinion and the 
right to discuss any subject in an intelligent and legiti- 
mate manner which I think is of public interest. I make 
use of this privilege in discussing your race for County 
Attorney. 

I did not take you seriously. I thought your election 
was out of the question, a dead issue. To my surprise 
you received the confidence of the people expressed in 
their votes — that placed you second in the final race — 
that is an arrant nonsense of the good people which must 
be rectified. 

To consider you an honest man fit for the position 
mentioned, the good people of Grayson County must 
suffer a contemptible superstition of your virtues, car- 
ried by thoughtless prejudice and false sympathy in your 
favor, a very convenient makeshift which dispenses with 
the necessity of reflection in the earnest search for the 
truth. This prejudice of the people is based on an un- 
sound judgment of your merits and your ability as 
lawyer. 

The public are marvelously patient ; instead of crying 
out overloudly on provocation, they have protested less 
imperatively than either their authority or their griev- 
ances give them warrant to protest. They have waited 
one hundred and forty years in the hope that the law- 
yers would provide the relief, which they themselves 
admit to be deserved; but the people have waited well- 
nigh in vain, for nothing has been accomplished — senti- 
mentalism seems to block all forms of legal progress ! 

Crenshaw ! Your success in the race is founded on the 



164 HIGH TREASON 

lack of a little more than common interest in the welfare 
of the community on the part of the people ; they should 
quit their indifference in light-mindedly giving away 
public positions to persons unworthy of them. Each one 
solemnly shakes his head over the rottenness of existing 
conditions on bench and bar, and each one, when the 
occasion offers, promptly repudiates every efficient rem- 
edy proposed, without offering another one to put in its 
place. The suggestion that comes at times from the legal 
profession that this necessary change is to be made in a 
tender, conciliating and a mollifying way, with sweet 
reasonableness in respect to themselves, is of that euphe- 
mistic character that pleases the ear of a fool, but not 
that of a reasoning man. Our legal profession is a rotten 
system, an outworn system, a most dishonest system, one 
that is an incubator of graft in the most offensive form, 
ever ready and ever willing to cripple and to destroy 
the usefulness of our courts and deprive the meek and 
unfortunate of their constitutional safeguards, which the 
courts alone have preserved for them. The effective 
organization of the legal profession, called "the system, " 
has usually defeated every effort to reform it. The 
cause is that an individual prefers to suffer the destruc- 
tion of his honor and his reputation rather than recede 
from a position which his better judgment must tell him 
cannot be maintained, if there is a change. The only 
thing that promises lasting effect is to hang one crook 
after the other, figuratively speaking, in order to get 
rid of them! 

I do not know whether another in my place would act 
as I do, but I do know if he would not, it would be 
because he lacked the nerve and the grit to meet the 
gravity of the situation. The timidity of the other man 
is justified ; a wall-breaker cannot be of elderberry wood. 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 165 

I spare and fear nobody, to get to the root of corruption. 
I publicly charge you, Charles Crenshaw, to be one of 
the worst deviators from the path of rectitude on the 
Grayson County Bench and Bar. Catch that, and it 
will carry you past all rocks ; it will not carry you to the 
heaven of your desires and ambitions, but it may avert 
your destiny, to which the law of the land would carry 
you, if you do not reform. You lack the spirituality 
that underlies morality, that morality which exalts the 
law as the sovereign will. You cannot observe the dead 
letter of reason ; how can you serve its spirit ? 

You are not a lawyer of reason and conscience, who 
counsels wisely, defends bravely, and prosecutes fear- 
lessly. You are a bad example of professional conduct 
who defies his office and makes mockery of justice — how 
can you be our lawkeeper? You would handle cases on 
the point the lawyers scored, not on the right of the 
matter; in the end perhaps to confess yourself a worse 
villain than the man that was hanged. You probably, 
after my experiences with you, would sell Grayson 
County to the highest bidder, the first day in office, as 
Charlie Vowel and others did. You would not break down 
the walls of that old, foul tradition of the legal profes- 
sion, to suppress the right and oppress the people. You 
would help make those walls stronger. I believe that you 
would be a miserable, untrue, treacherous servant who 
would unblushingly take people's money for the splen- 
did services you were expected to perform. 

If efficiency is the result of practice rather than of 
theory, the search for your efficiency in office, and the 
search for the one best method of accomplishing your 
task, would have the same source identically. Lacking 
all ability or efficiency, your whole interest in the posi- 
tion would be to practice how to get the most graft out 



166 HIGH TREASON 

of it. You do not know the method and device for 
discovering evidences of crime; the safest and most prac- 
tical way to serve society, and last but not least you lack 
absolutely the necessary diligence to find the truth in 
the protection of the innocent. By those qualities that 
you lack you are unable to render an opinion, much less 
to assist a jury in reaching an accurate verdict, in ac- 
cordance with evidence and justice. You are one of 
those real deviators at the bar who do not care a bit for 
causing heartaches, sorrows and tears. 

As you must be true to yourself according to the law 
of nature, it must follow, as night follows day, that you 
must be false to everyone. If you are not conscious of 
your character, you are non compos mentis and must 
quit the bar. Ask your legal friend, Hamp P. Abney. 
Birds of a feather flock together. I assume that he 
inherited the arm-chair at your fireside. When you 
assure him of your innocence as to my charges, 
and if he is your candid friend (the worst kind of friend 
a man can have), he will put you right and sincerely 
exclaim: "I should believe you, Charlie, but you know 
I, too, am a liar. I admit that the material conditions 
in our Court are sound and favorable for an advance 
in Court; but the psychological conditions of your case 
are equally unhealthy — the best thing for you is to with- 
draw from the race." 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



AGAINST OUK CONSTITUTION 167 



TO THE HONORABLE J. T. SUGGS, ATTORNEY- 
AT-LAW, DENISON. 

Sir: 

When the Grayson County people made up their minds 
to build macadamized roads, you were honored by the 
Commissioners ' Court to draw a contract for the con- 
tractor, McAnaney, who was willing to build these roads. 
The Commissioners of the Court, trusting your honesty 
as lawyer and as a man worth the hire of five hundred 
dollars for a simple contract, signed that contract with- 
out approval when presented by you. The expense of 
this five hundred dollars from the public treasury was 
a wholly unwarranted expenditure of the Commissioners. 
It was the official duty of Cal Freeman, County Attor- 
ney, and his numerous deputies, in their quality as legal 
advisers of the commissioners, to draw that contract. 
Faithless to his stewardship, Cal Freeman consented that 
you should draw the contract, I suppose by "the die* 
tates of the inner ethics of the legal profession. ' ' When 
you delivered that ominous contract, the official duty of 
the County Attorney, Cal Freeman, was to revise it care- 
fully and professionally and to see if you drew a per- 
fect contract and honestly had gained this five hundred 
dollars, paid you in advance in the utmost trust. The 
ex-County Attorney, Cal Freeman, again neglected his 
official duty, in not doing so before the contract was 
signed by the commissioners, again guilty of gross mis- 
conduct and inefficiency in office. 

The contract you had drawn was not only incomplete, 
but fraudulently drawn. The contractor, McAnaney, 
took advantage of your faulty contract; he quit work 
and brought suit against Grayson County for damages 
accrued to him by your incomplete contract. 



168 HIGH TREASON 

You were called before the parties in session in the 
Court House, in the room of the Commissioners, to re- 
spond and explain your fraudulent action, and you said : 
" Gentlemen! I am very loath to be mixed up in this 
controversy regarding the validity of the contract be- 
tween you — the Commissioners of the Court, the Con- 
tractor, McAnaney, the Surety Company and the Auditor 
of Grayson County. The plaintiffs have brought suit 
in the fifteenth Judicial District before his honor, Judge 
Ben L. Jones, to enjoin all payments of money for labor 
or material to build said road. These plaintiffs have 
offered me a thousand dollars to assist them in showing 
that this contract cannot be enforced. If you pay me 
Five Hundred Dollars, I had much rather work for you. 
From the plaintiffs, especially the Surety Company, I 
have had many cases before, and it will be a great loss 
to me should I fail to accept their proposition ; but inas- 
much as I drew that contract and have received Five 
Hundred Dollars for it, it would put me in a bad light 
as attorney and drawer of it to destroy my own work." 

The ex-County Attorney, Cal Freeman, again failed to 
do his duty, to disbar you at once and forever from 
practicing law in the United States, for such gross 
breach of faith and confidence ; and to recover from you 
that Five Hundred Dollars that you received for a job 
which you had not performed, by urging the County 
Commissioners to bring suit against you for this amount. 

You and County Attorney Cal Freeman in your mis- 
conduct favor one another as one foul egg favors another. 
Both of you have abandoned blushing over malpractice 
and gross misconduct in legal acts ; both of you appear 
for both plaintiff and defendant in actions involving 
the same issue; you active, and Cal Freeman in tacit 
consent to cloak your breach of faith, faithfully ex- 



AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTION 169 

pressed, I should say, your rascality. As both of you use 
a legal process in an abusive and oppressive manner, you 
have by this fact ceased to be of that good moral char- 
acter required by our statutes as conditio sine qua non 
for admission to the bar. 

The Commissioners of the Court refused your noble 
offer to serve the County again with a sacrifice for you 
of Five Hundred Dollars, as plaintiffs had offered you 
a Thousand Dollars to exhibit your perversity in serving 
them. The County Commissioners employed the most 
honorable Judge Wolf, a man of transparent integrity, 
endowed with the finest sense of justice that human mind 
can frame, to defend the County in the suit, paying him 
Five Hundred Dollars for his service. 

The case for Grayson County was lost — against your 
"shrewdness" even the gods themselves would contend 
in vain ! In a contract all terms must be complete and 
assented to ; both sides must understand it and be bound 
to it, or neither; both parties must agree to the same 
thing and in the same sense. In the formation of a valid 
contract there must be an agreement by offer and accept- 
ance. Contracts must be consummate before they are 
obligatory. You all knew that well, otherwise you could 
not win that suit, and therefore wilfully violated its 
terms for greed. 

As an inhabitant and taxpayer in Grayson County I 
herewith demand from you to refund to the treasury 
of Grayson County the Five Hundred Dollars that you 
received for a job that you did not perform, and the 
Five Hundred Dollars that the County paid to defend 
your faulty contract, and all expenses accrued to the 
County by your breach of faith, with six per cent interest 
from the date the respective sums left the treasury till 
the date when you refund them — I rest on that! 



170 HIGH TREASON 



w 



Should I not receive from our Auditor in a reasonable 
time the information that you have paid your debts as 
above mentioned, I shall present the matter before the 
proper court for settlement. 

In due respect, 

Karl Dignowity Zur Wehre. 



i'HYOF CONGRESS 



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